Tennessee 51, Georgia 33

As the clock was winding down at Sanford Stadium and I stood in the fast-emptying end zone bleachers, watching Tennessee players and fans celebrating their wild, resounding victory between the hedges Saturday night, I realized that we had been left with even more questions surrounding this Georgia team than we had in Oxford, Mississippi less than a week before.

And as I walked up Baxter Street toward my apartment, I also realized that maybe that’s not such a bad thing after all.

So while I don’t really intend for this post to be an all-is-well rationalization of all the things that went wrong against the Volunteers, I will do my best to leave most of the Sunday morning quarterbacking, second guessing, and out and out venting to radio show callers, Dawg venters, and various other bloggers.


Did you ever think you would see this?

Georgia gave up 51 points Saturday night. Fifty. One. Points. Obviously, you can’t allow 51 points and expect to win a football game or say that something didn’t go horribly wrong on defense. I’ll admit it surprised me when Georgia didn’t seem to make much of an adjustment to stop the Vols’ passing game after halftime.

But, though I’m certainly no expert, I wonder what Coach Martinez could have done to totally shut down the Tennessee O. The Vols have three legitimate threats to take it all the way at wideout. Georgia, conversely, is playing a bevy of freshmen and sophomores in the secondary. By consistently bringing the blitz, Ainge would’ve had Meachem, Swain, and Smith facing man coverage most of the night. Advantage: Tennessee. The lack of pass rush is troubling, though, but maybe UT’s line really is that good. I don’t know.

Also, here are the lengths of Tennessee’s second half scoring drives: 19 yards, 36 yards, 55 yards, 44 yards, zero yards (blocked punts). Not exactly a great position to put your defense in. There were also four second half turnovers. The defense got absolutely carved up, no question, but there’s no need to start calling for Martinez’s head just yet.



I don’t know what the difference was offensively in the early going, but it showed us that this unit does indeed have the capability to move the football and (gasp!) stick it in the end zone. Again, Tereshinski didn’t do anything spectacular, but I don’t think there’s any way you can put the blame for this loss on his shoulders.

Both interceptions he threw were flat out good plays by the Tennessee defense. I doubt there’s a quarterback in America who wouldn’t have made those throws and had them picked off (though Michael Vick probably would’ve thrown the second one right into the dirt). Georgia even ran the ball well, particularly out of the I. Lumpkin ran extremely hard, and even Thomas Brown seemed to get back on track a little bit.

And finally, maybe the Bulldogs do have a playmaker or two after all. Mohamed Massaquoi made some nice catches and A.J. Bryant had a beautiful grab to set up a score in the first half. Brown and Mikey Henderson continue to make big plays in the kicking game.

In the end, Tennessee is just a much better team right now. Georgia’s inexperience and immaturity showed up in a lot of places last night, but so did their abundance of talent and resilience. It’s going to take a lot of luck and a lot of growing up, but there’s no reason to write 2006 off as a rebuilding year. Not just yet.