For the past several hours, I've been pondering an age-old question. Which is worse: getting your posterior handed to you for an entire game and losing my double digits or a kick in the teeth loss like the Vols experienced today at LSU.
Or in the case of this game--to have a win ripped out from under you in the last second. Of course, there were a lot of small and large mistakes that lead up to it. Even before we had 13 guys on the field on defense, there were a couple of plays that defined things. The first is the phantom pass interference call made by the refs late in the drive, giving LSU the ball at the two. That ball was not catchable. Then, if we back up a bit more, we have the failure to convert on fourth and one late in the game, close to the red zone. I'm not a coach, but I fail to understand why you don't do a QB sneak and go behind the offensive line rather than falling back to hand off two yards deep.
Or maybe we punt and pin them back...make them work harder to drive down field.
Injuries to our kicker hurt us. As I said last year after Alabama, we've got a whole soccer team over there at UT...surely one of those guys could kick a field goal or two for us!
Yes, I'm angry, bitter, hurt and have had my heart stomped out. To go from the thrill of a huge upset to the agony of defeat in about two minutes....I can't put into words the pain, shock, awe I felt.
Les Miles needs to get down on his knees and thank the Vols for allowing him to keep his job for another week. I don't follow LSU closely, but it seems like every time I see them play I see some phenomenal foul-up when it comes to managing the clock late in the game. It's bit them before and it nearly bit them today. And LSU is the worst top ten I've seen in a long time. They've got some huge issues and I think the Vols exposed a lot of them today. I predict at least three losses headed their way before season's end--Florida, Alabama, Auburn.
I wouldn't be proud of that win, LSU fans. It was stolen, plain and simple.
On a more positive note, I feel like we saw the Vols mature on offense in the fourth quarter. I saw a confidence build and even though we didn't make the fourth-and-one when we so desperately needed it, I still felt like we made some good strides.
I hope the Vol are as mad as I am. And that we take it out next week on Georgia. I'd love to see the Vols head down there and whip the stuffing out of the Bulldogs!
Labels: tennessee football
posted by Michael Hickerson at 10/02/2010 08:31:00 PM |
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