Anthony Parker

KNOXVILLE — Maybe Saturday was just a bump in the road. A big bump in the road. A second bump in the road.

Or maybe it was a roadblock.

That answer will come soon enough for the University of Tennessee football team.

Saturday’s 30-6 setback to fourth-ranked Florida occurred in Neyland Stadium, and the Volunteers travel to 15th-ranked Auburn and third-ranked Georgia in the next three weeks.

There’s a fine line between learning from Saturday’s mistakes and focusing on the future. If they don’t balance those two factors, they could slip into a painful fall.

“I don’t think it’s something we’re going to sit here and talk about,” Vols coach Phillip Fulmer said. “It’s something we’ve got to go to work about.”

Sunday night’s practice couldn’t come quickly enough for a team that shocked itself 24 hours earlier with a stunningly inept effort against the hated Gators.

“We’ve said all along that we had to get better, but now, it’s (about) the whole season,” sophomore tight end Luke Stocker said. “It’s time that we get better right now.

“We can’t wait any longer. We have to have a sense of urgency.”

Saying that and proving it on the field are two different matters.

Two embarrassing losses last season — one of the West Coast, one blowout to Florida — couldn’t completely change the Vols’ course. That occurred after their third thumping, a collapse at archrival Alabama.

From there, they combined better play and got better bounces to rally themselves into the Southeastern Conference championship game.

“It seems like we’ve got to learn things the hard way sometimes,” Fulmer said.

But California last season was probably better than this season’s UCLA Bruins. The Vols fell apart in the third quarter at Florida last season, but they self-destructed in just more than 10 minutes on their home field Saturday.

Asked if UT was an angry football team, junior center Josh McNeil said, “It better be.

“We just got beat by Florida,” McNeil added. “If we’re not angry, we’ve got a problem.”

Regardless, the Vols have plenty of problems. An alarming number of small, fundamental mistakes on offense, defense and special teams have wrecked another September.

The defense’s issue is simple to spot: It doesn’t get off the field. Florida had just 243 yards of total offense but converted 8 of 13 third-down opportunities.

“I saw the stats, and that’s unacceptable,” junior defensive end Wes Brown said. “We can’t have that happen.

“Obviously, we’ve got to correct that.”

There might be starting lineup changes, but not at quarterback. Fulmer said Sunday night that he would stick with struggling junior Jonathan Crompton this week.

“Jon’s our quarterback,” Fulmer said after referencing a laundry list of Crompton’s early-season shortcomings.

Aside from Crompton’s disappointing season statistics — 56-of-100 passing for two touchdowns and four interceptions — his lack of field vision and small, fundamental mistakes have been costly.

Fulmer said Crompton went out of his lane and bumped into lead blocker Kevin Cooper’s elbow to cause a fumble near Florida’s goalline in Saturday’s first half. Crompton also missed an audible on the fourth-and-goal play that resulted in an interception just before the break. A Florida penalty nullified another interception on that drive.

“If it was just Jon, that would be one thing,” Fulmer said. “Our thing has to be execution, and not putting a quarterback that’s got limited experience in that kind of situation.”

Other changes could happen. Fulmer said he was looking at “all the possibilities” on the punt team, which is second-to-last in NCAA major Division with a 22-yard net average.

Sophomore Chad Cunningham has had a blocked punt returned for a score at UCLA, and he clearly kicked the ball too low and too far from the sideline to Brandon James in Saturday’s first quarter.

In fairness, the Vols missed six tackles on James’ 78-yard score, and James has torched Tennessee for three years. Every facet of that group has been inconsistent.

“It’s been one thing or another,” Stocker said. “It’s always just one little mistake, but at this level that’s all it takes.”

Fulmer said the UCLA and Florida appearances were “not us.” But for two consecutive Septembers, that’s precisely what the Vols have been.

“It’s the little things that make you lose a ball game, and for that to continuously keep happening, that’s frustrating,” senior guard Anthony Parker said. “It’s things you want to eliminate, but they’re continuously happening.”