I Wish I Had Gone To Bed Earlier........

If someone had randomly appeared from the future and told me that the Dawgs would be up 24-7 on the Vowels with halftime approaching, I would have run naked down the middle of the street and slapped every ugly orange wearing hillbilly that I could find. Fortunately that didn't happen and I didn't go out and make an ass out of myself as I have heard some of our Red and Black wearing bretheren did. I also heard that some of those same obnoxious hillbillies were less than gracious winners, but then again we expect that from fans that have to take off their shoes to count past ten.

Now that I have gotten that out of my system lets dissect what happened last night:

Things That Made Me Happy

• Lumpkin running hard and ripping off big chunks with every run.
• Joe T returning and completeing some passes.
• WR's and RB's catching said passes.
• Punt Return for TD
• Kick Return for TD
• Thomas Brown running the football well.

Things That Made Me Want To Scream

• The Defense not getting any pressure on Ainge.
• The Defense not adjusting to Tennessee getting the WR/LB mismatch on every play.
• ANOTHER blocked punt.
• Blown coverages in the secondary and pathetic tackling.
• Playcalling in the second half (more on this later)
• Turnovers ('nuff said)

I am going to echo a couple of other bloggers in saying that I feel better about this loss than I did about our previous two wins. With Joe T. at the controls the Offense moves and we score points, plain and simple. The Defense was exposed for what it is, a good unit, but a young unit in the secondary. Special teams were both good and bad, Punt and Kickoff for TD's and another blocked punt. Coaching (especially the Defensive coaching) was suspect at best. DC Martinez did nothing to adjust in the second half. We were in a base 4-3 for a majority of plays with safety help on the outside receivers leaving the MLB on the slot man. That is a mismatch and one that a smart QB and OC will take everytime (and they did). When we finally went to a nickel package our true Freshman DB was getting beat like a rented goalie. I don't understand why we didn't roll to a cover 3 or put Oliver in man coverage and give Ramarcus Brown or Evans help deep and put the remaining safety on the slot receiver. The lack of adjustment by DC Martinez has been a hallmark of his tenure as Defensive Coordinator going back to last season.

Offensively we look fabulous in the first half, I honestly think that is as good as we can play on Offense. Why we went away from the run the second half is beyond me. I do however have to be honest and say that I have been critical of CMR in the past for "playing not to lose and not playing to win". I think he was playing to win last night and with our prior success throwing the football felt that if we could drive the field and score we could put them away. No one could have forseen the bad luck that plagued us on our 4 second half turnovers. Three of the four were just plain dumb luck (both of Joe T.'s INT's and the punt block). Take away those three turnovers and the resulting points and we win by a FG.

All in all while I hate losing to those hillbillies from Rocky Top, they clearly had the better team and deserved to win. I also still think that we can get to where we want to be at the end of the year if we handle our business. Florida still has Auburn, UGA and S.Carolina left (don't laugh), Tennessee still has Arkansas, LSU and Alabama left, and we have Florida and Auburn left. Odds are the SEC East representative is going to have 1 loss for sure, and probably 2 losses.

Keep the faith and GOO DAWGS!!

Vandy preview on Tuesday.