Laces out, Dan!

It’s always easy to blame the kicker, but Vol fans who watched the UCLA debacle know that the blame can’t all be heaped onto Daniel Lincoln. Sure, he missed three field goals (four, if you include one miss that was nullified by a penalty and resulted in a punt) but he is hardly the sole culprit. It should be noted that two (or three, including the no-go) of his misses were from over 50 yards, although he definitely should have made the 35 yarder in OT.

Let’s recap: Tennessee intercepted four wayward Kevin Craft passes in the first half alone, including one that was returned for a touchdown. They held UCLA to a total of 29 rushing yards. Yet somehow, they went into halftime holding only a 14-7 lead. In the second half, they allowed a rejuvenated UCLA passing offense to take the lead before UT tied the game on a last-second field goal. Of course, Tennessee ultimately lost in overtime, but it seemed a foregone conclusion before the players even took the field.

The highly-touted Jonathan Crompton looked as if he had never faced a live pass rush, and continually scattered passes high, short and wide of his intended targets. He ended up completing 19 of 41passes for a paltry 46% completion percentage. Even when things did seem to be going well, the Vols never failed to shoot themselves in the foot with an ill-timed penalty, racking up nine to UCLA’s two. One of the worst sequences was early in the fourth quarter, when Tennessee had returned a punt to UCLA’s 25 yard line. After a short rush and then an incomplete pass, Crompton took a sack that effectively pushed the Vols out of field goal range. They tried the kick anyway, and even though Lincoln missed the attempt, it wouldn’t have counted due to a delay of game penalty. Instead, the Vols wound up punting from the UCLA 38, which ended up going out of the end zone. Even with the punt, Tennessee only gained six yards of field position from their original line of scrimmage.

Turnovers ultimately proved more costly for Tennessee than UCLA, as the Vols fumbled the ball at the UCLA 5 yards line early in the third quarter. A touchdown would have put Tennessee up 21-7 and could have drastically affected the momentum of the game. Even a field goal would have made it a two-score game. Meanwhile, aside from the interception return for a touchdown, Tennessee could only manage two missed 50+ yard field goals off of UCLA’s three other interceptions.

After running UCLA off the field in the first half, the defense seemed content to sit back and let Kevin Craft pick them apart, rarely rushing more than four down linemen. Tennessee never seemed to adjust to UCLA’s zone-beating pass attack, and the Bruins chewed the Vols up ten yards at a time in the critical fourth quarter. Despite no threat of a running game, Tennessee did nothing to prevent Kevin Craft from completing the little hook routes and crosses over the middle that kept their drives alive. In fact, UCLA was able to construct two nearly identical touchdown drives of 70 and 80 yards each in the fourth quarter. I can only recall one time when Tennessee was able to sack the quarterback, although there may have been one or two more, but UCLA and their coaching staff essentially had their way with the UT defense in the waning minutes.

I suppose I could go on and on about Tennessee’s blunders. While credit is in due for Kevin Craft and his gutsy second half play, the Volunteers really threw this game away. One thing to consider: last year started off with a disappointing Pac-10 loss, and UT ended up in the SEC Championship. Even after humiliating losses to Florida and Alabama left them at 4-3, Tennessee was able to climb back and win five straight. Unfortunately, I think Tennessee may need a little more luck if they want to reach eight wins again this year.

In other SEC news, the conference generally turned in impressive performances. Florida, LSU and Georgia dominated, as expected, but Alabama delivered a truly head-turning performance by demolishing ACC pre-season favorite Clemson. Kentucky also performed surprisingly well in holding rival Louisville to a safety in a 27-2 romp. Aside from Tennessee’s disappointing turn, Arkansas and Mississippi State looked like SEC pretenders after their showings. Arkansas barely held off Western Illinois in Bobby Petrino’s debut, while Mississippi State couldn’t even match that, losing to Louisiana Tech.

Coming up later this week is a not-too-surprising dearth of quality games, as most of the top teams are tuning up against lightweights, ala OSU-Ohio, LSU-Troy, and Texas-UTEP. The most interesting SEC matchup should be the Thursday night battle between South Carolina and Vanderbilt. Expect a low scoring game: Vanderbilt won 17-6 last year at South Carolina. As I mentioned before, a Vandy win would go a big way towards getting the Commodores to their first bowl since 1982. Other top matchups include Florida-Miami (which would have been a great game five years ago) and West Virginia-East Carolina. East Carolina is coming off of a big win against Virginia Tech and would like to pull off two major upsets in a row. Beyond on that, you won't be missing much.

One final thought: Georgia fans - don't look past Central Michigan. They travel to Athens to face the Bulldogs, and this CMU team is better than most people realize. Granted, last year they were blown out by Kansas and Clemson by a combined score of 132-21, but QB Dan LeFevour is a talent and helped bring the 2007 MAC title to Central Michigan. Then again, Georgia has a pretty good history of dealing with highly touted non-BCS passing attacks...