GAINESVILLE, Fla. - Eleven minutes and 31 seconds remained in Saturday's fourth quarter. Florida running back Dameon Pierce had just crossed the goal line to put the Gators up 31-3 over the visiting college football team from the Volunteer State.
Over the Ben Hill Griffin Stadium loudspeakers blared the late rock and roll great and Gainesville native Tom Petty's classic "Free Fallin."
In the wake of Tennessee's eventual 34-3 loss to the nation's No. 9 team, could any song better describe the Big Orange football program four games into this 2019 season?
"Our best players have got to play good, OK?" second-year Volunteers coach Jeremy Pruitt said after this one. "At some point you've got to take the bull by the horns and say 'Let's go!'"
Or get gored if you don't.
Mark WiedmerNever mind that this doesn't even appear to be an elite Gators squad, despite its 4-0 record. The Vols, after all, forced three turnovers, even if they had all of three points to show for such defensive thievery. They did surrender 441 total yards, but many of those came relatively late, after the defense was forced to spend far too many hot and humid minutes on the field due to an offense that produced just 239 total yards.
"The (offensive) plays were there," lamented senior wide receiver Marquez Callaway, who made one catch for 27 yards. "We just didn't execute."
You could say this is just Florida. This happens almost every single year against the Gators. Florida has now won 14 of its last 15 games against Tennessee, the average margin of defeat in those 14 Vols losses a rather noncompetitive 14.5 points. Just in case you're wondering, Saturday's 31-point victory margin by the Gators is the second largest among those 14 defeats, trailing only the 39-point bludgeoning (59-20) in the Swamp in 2007.
But here's what is most troubling: Florida won by 26 (47-21) a year ago in Knoxville. Saturday's margin was 31. Not to necessarily blame Pruitt, because a lot of good plays were called against the Gators that went nowhere because of wretched execution, but it's hard to see how anything is improving with this Tennessee football program under his watch.
For further proof, merely consider the Vols' three defeats in their four games this season.
The first, that 38-30 season-opening loss to Georgia State, just might be the most embarrassing, humiliating defeat in program history. And before anyone thinks the Panthers - 2-10 a season ago and picked to finish last in the Sun Belt Conference this season - were underrated, they lost 57-10 at Western Michigan last week.
The second setback, that double-overtime loss to BYU, might be the single worst example of prevent defense in the final 20 seconds of a near-certain win in school history, given that the Cougars - 80 yards from the goal with 17 seconds to play - somehow managed to find a receiver wide open for a 64-yard gain that led to a field goal to force overtime.
Yes, the Vols crushed little brother University of Tennessee at Chattanooga last week by a 45-0 score, but what does that prove, that the Vols' 85 scholarship players are better than UTC's 63? They should be.
Now this, a 31-point loss at Florida. If this isn't a program that's been hopelessly free fallin' for the past 20 years, what would you call it? A gradual decline? A slow descent? Or, perhaps, a bottomless pit, with no end seemingly in sight for this Tennessee tailspin?
Anyone determined to view this loss through Clorox Orange-colored glasses certainly can point to a couple of early screw-ups that could have made a difference. Down 7-0, starting quarterback Jarrett Guarantano found Jauan Jennings in the end zone for what should have been a score. But the ball glanced off Jennings' normally sticky-fingered hands for an interception.
Then, on the first snap of the second quarter, came the kind of play that far too often has come to define Vols football the past decade or so. With tight end Dominick Wood-Anderson almost as wide open as that BYU receiver was against the Vols, Guarantano channeled his inner Charlie Brown, throwing the kind of wobbly, impossibly bad pass that no high school quarterback on any level should throw, much less a Southeastern Conference QB.
What should have been a touchdown - or at least a huge gain - became an incompletion. Ofensive coordinator Jim Chaney had dialed up the perfect play. Wood-Anderson had run the perfect route. To return to a line from Callaway, incredibly poor execution had wrecked it.
Five plays later, Guarantano threw his second interception of the afternoon, and the Vols soon headed to halftime on the short end of a 17-0 score. When the second half began, Pruitt put his starting QB on the bench for a few series in favor of freshman Brian Maurer.
"We made a few mistakes there," Pruitt said, "so we went with Brian and to get Jarrett settled down a little bit."
The Vols did kick a field goal in the third quarter to briefly pull within 14 points. Alas, the Gators added 17 points after that.
"We're not good enough to beat a good team," Pruitt noted, "if we don't play mistake-free."
Florida's a good team. Future opponents No. 2 Alabama and No. 3 Georgia are far better than good.
That doesn't mean there isn't at least a small sliver of good news in all this.
The Vols can't possibly lose next Saturday. They have an off week before hosting Georgia on Oct. 5.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @TFPWeeds.