KNOXVILLE – Tennessee football players and coaches undoubtedly wish they’d spent Sunday breaking down video of Alabama and preparing for a meeting with the Crimson Tide in this week’s Southeastern Conference championship game.
That was not the case, obviously.
But it doesn’t mean this has been a lost year for the Volunteers, who completed an 8-4 regular season Saturday with their fifth win in a row, a 53-28 dispatching of Vanderbilt.
Despite achieving the program’s best win total – with a bowl game still ahead – since going 10-4 in 2007, the Vols may find it hard to watch Florida play Alabama at the Georgia Dome on Saturday, especially given what happened prior to Tennessee’s finishing flourish.
“I wouldn’t say (there’s) a salty taste,” cornerback Cameron Sutton said after Saturday’s win. “That’s the thing about the game of football. You see things after the game that you didn’t see throughout the game or the course of those games. We learned from the mistakes. We put ourselves in good situations to be where we are right now.