Mark WiedmerATHENS, Ga. – Tennessee football coach Jeremy Pruitt thought about his team’s 38-12 loss at No. 2 Georgia on Saturday afternoon – a loss in which his Volunteers briefly were within 24-12 early in the fourth quarter – and said, “We’re headed in the right direction.”
Georgia coach Kirby Smart assessed his Bulldogs’ performance in that same game and said, “Our guys played hard; we just didn’t always play smart. Lack of execution gets you beat. We must execute at a higher level to be successful.”
Don’t misunderstand. Pruitt also said there are “no moral victories.”
Smart also said, “When we had to play well in the second half, we challenged them and they did so.”
But if all of this sounds like the team that lost acted as if it had won and the team that won behaved as it might after a loss, well, so be it. That’s the difference in playing for championships and playing for respect. That’s the difference in standing 5-0 overall and 3-0 in the Southeastern Conference, as Georgia does today, and being 2-3 overall and 0-2 within the SEC, as Tennessee is at the moment.