Tennessee offensive coordinator Mike DeBord watches as the Vols stretch before practice at Haslam Field on Aug. 6, 2015.KNOXVILLE -- The most-debated coaching decision in Tennessee's one-point loss to Florida came back up as a topic of conversation on Tuesday, some 72 hours after it was made.
Offensive coordinator Mike DeBord was asked about the decision the Volunteers made to kick the extra point up a dozen with 10 minutes to go in the fourth quarter of Saturday's loss in Gainesville.
A successful two-point conversion would've meant, at worst, the Gators would have tied the game with their two fourth-quarter touchdowns.
"That was a decision based upon time," he explained. "If it was less time, then we would have gone for two. But with that much time left, basically you do normally go for one.
"I've been in that situation before, and that's exactly what we did before, too. It's a decision that you make at that time. You don't know what's going to happen 11 minutes later."
DeBord said he and tight ends coach Mark Elder, who both coach from the booth on game days, discussed the decision with head coach Butch Jones.
Jones explained his reasoning for kicking the extra point after the game, but the choice wasn't brought up during his news conference on Monday.
"We were discussing that prior to the drive, if we did score, whether we'd go for one or two," he said Saturday. "We have a chart that's pretty standard in football that kind of maps it out.
"We just felt at that stage of the game we had great confidence in our defense of getting off the football field and (not) allowing them to push the ball down the field. We felt very comfortable with that decision."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.