Vols not ready after all

ATHENS, Ga. - The University of Tennessee football team said the right things all week. The Volunteers admitted their last-play loss at LSU was brutal, but they steadfastly maintained their full focus had moved onto a seemingly much more winnable game at Georgia.

But the Vols left Sanford Stadium in shame after a 41-14 thumping from the same Bulldogs who'd lost four of their first five games.

"People can talk about it all day - 'Oh, we're ready to go, we're ready to go' - but when you get on the field, what are you going to do? Are you going to strap it up and go?" UT junior tailback Tauren Poole said. "We didn't do that today. Not even close."

It didn't even feel 41-14 close.

"I thought we were [ready] heading into the game, but the game itself didn't look like we were," Tennessee coach Derek Dooley said after his first hometown homecoming as a head coach. "It's hard to say we were ready when we go out there and get run out of the stadium from the first play to the last."

Disaster started on the 13th play from scrimmage.

Georgia redshirt freshman quarterback Aaron Murray scored his first of four touchdowns - two through the air, and two on the ground - with a 35-yard scramble midway through the first quarter.

The Vols had three first-half turnovers: two fumbles lost by return specialist Eric Gordon and a Matt Simms interception.

UT was fortunate to trail just 27-7 at halftime, but Georgia scored another touchdown on the first possession of the third quarter to essentially end the game with more than 25 minutes left.

"It hurts. You can't deny it," said Simms, who was pulled for true freshman Tyler Bray early in the fourth quarter despite a decent day - 9-for-13, 179 yards, one touchdown and the pick.

"It hurts bad," Simms continued. "We just barely lost to the No. 10 team in the country, and now we just got our behinds handed to us like that against a team that we thought we could have played really well [against] and beat."

Only a politely played fourth quarter from embattled Georgia coach Mark Richt prevented the score from getting even further out of control.

"We had three turnovers ... basically four turnovers, and they start the drives on our side, and we didn't handle that very well," Dooley said. "That's what was disappointing. We didn't bow up and make a stop, and so it kept coming. Yeah, it was bad. We got in a hole.

"You know, we just aren't very good right now. Therefore, if we don't play a clean game - meaning no turnovers, no dumb penalties, making them earn it - that's what happens. That's what happened the second half [against] Oregon."

It might keep happening if the Vols don't plug the problems in a hurry. Top-ranked Alabama and South Carolina are next on the schedule after an off Saturday this week.

"I feel like we've been a little down from the game last week," UT junior middle linebacker Austin Johnson said. "Coming into today, we were hoping to match that intensity and bring that back into this game."

And that didn't happen, Poole emphatically stated.

"I felt like [the LSU game] ripped our hearts out, but you've got to come out and you've got to compete. And that didn't happen today," said Poole, who scored one of UT's two touchdowns against the Bulldogs. "When things don't go our way, we've got to continue and not let up. And Georgia out-competed us today, and that's the biggest thing. They had effort on every play, and we didn't."

"Georgia brought it today, and they made up their mind every play that they were going to out-compete us. And they did that. Hats off to them. We got our [tail] whipped. We've got to learn how to respond now."

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