Mark Wiedmer
Derrick Craine — who was injured on the third possession of the third quarter and did not return — had 55 yards on a pair of receptions to go along with 35 yards on only eight carries.Starting over.
Isn't that where the football teams of both the University of Tennessee and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga find themselves today?
Both the Vols and Mocs suddenly need help to reach their goals. Thanks to Saturday's 49-10 humiliation against No. 1 Alabama, UT now has one more Southeastern Conference loss than Florida, which means some SEC team is going to have to pin a second loss on the Gators in order for the Vols to reach the league championship game as the East Division champs.
Certainly on paper, the likelihood of Florida sustaining at least one more league defeat - UT owns the tiebreaker between the two by virtue of its 38-28 win over the Gators - would appear highly possible, bordering on probable.
And should the opposite happen, if Florida can somehow go undefeated in SEC action the rest of the way against a schedule that includes a neutral-site game against Georgia in Jacksonville, Fla., on Oct. 29, a road game at Arkansas the following week and the rescheduled LSU clash on Nov. 19, the Gators strongly deserve to be labeled the Beasts of the East.
Especially since the LSU game was originally supposed to be played in Gainesville before Hurricane Matthew forced a cancellation and an unusual decision by the league to let the Bayou Bengals host.
Nevertheless, it is what it is, as UT coach Butch Jones likes to say, and it would appear to be good news for a Big Orange bunch now needing help to reach Atlanta on Dec. 3 for the SEC title game.
UTC's path to both the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs and its fourth straight won or shared Southern Conference title is a bit more uncertain, however. This past Saturday's 22-14 loss to unbeaten The Citadel leaves the Mocs all but certain to finish second in league play.
The Citadel would have to lose twice in its remaining four SoCon games while UTC would need to win its final three league contests. Given that there would seem to be pretty good separation between the rest of the SoCon and the Bulldogs and Mocs, expecting The Citadel to collapse during a schedule that has a road game at Wofford (this weekend), home games against East Tennessee State and Samford and a road game at VMI is about as likely as Alabama losing to UTC on Nov. 19.
It could even be argued the Mocs should hope The Citadel remains undefeated until its Nov. 19 game at North Carolina, which would make UTC's loss - with Mocs running back Derrick Craine lost for most of the second half - less hurtful in the minds of the selection committee for the playoffs.
This isn't to intimate that UTC has serious reason to be concerned about postseason participation. If its only losses turn out to be at The Citadel and Alabama, it might still earn one of the eight first-round byes for the playoffs and should at least host a first-round game the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
But the prospect of possibly playing without Craine - who was reduced to crutches on the sideline late in the Citadel game - could change the Mocs' ability to win out until the trip to Tuscaloosa. That said, UTC should at least be able to control its own playoff destiny by going undefeated the rest of the way in SoCon play.
About all the Vols can control is finishing the regular season with 10 or more wins, which hasn't happened since 2003.
That would be a huge accomplishment no matter how the SEC title game shakes out, especially given the avalanche of injuries the Vols have suffered. As Jones lamented Saturday night, "When you usually have a run of injuries, it only affects one or two position groups. It's affected every position group."
And now injuries - if the dynamic Craine is lost for more than a game or two - could affect the Vols' and Mocs' seasons.
Yet after a weekend such as this, suffering losses that were as difficult emotionally as physically, the most important hurt to heal may be the heart, according to UTC defensive lineman Keionta Davis.
"I told the guys to remember that feeling (after a loss), because we never want to have it again," he told the Times Free Press on Saturday.
Because should either or both the Mocs and Vols have that feeling one more time in conference play, that team or both teams won't have a chance to realize their preseason postseason dreams this year.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.