From OnlineAthens.com
October 10th, 2015 09:58 PM
Knoxville, Tenn. | Mark Richt began his postgame comments Saturday night mentioning how he wanted to avoid cutting his finger on a chair like he did his last time here in 2013 in his news conference in the same room.
The Georgia couldn’t avoid losing a running back on the Neyland Stadium field for the second straight trip here. Keith Marshall tore an ACL two years ago.
This time stud running back Nick Chubb went down with an ugly knee injury on the first play that was hard to watch on replay. It had to be a season-ender, the world thought, but Richt was talking afterwards about how he was optimistic that Chubb could avoid surgery but he wasn’t 100 percent sure of that.
There wasn’t much for a Georgia fan to be optimistic about after the 38-31 loss.
Where to begin?
How about the tackling? Oh, the tackling.
Josh Dobbs and company had a lot of Georgia players swing and miss bringing them down on a night the Vols amassed 519 yards of offense.
“We knew he was a good athlete,” Richt said. “We knew he was a big, tough kid. He played inspired ball tonight. Really became a tackle breaker maybe even more so than I would have expected. We had a harder time once we got to him just getting him to the ground.”
Added defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt: “No 1 for them (Jalen Hurd) is a big man and when you let him get going, aight, you’ve got to bring your feet and we didn’t do that on occasion.”
Hurd had 80 yards on 21 carries.
Reggie Davis (three catches for 101 yards and touchdown and 70-yard punt return touchdown) and Sony Michel (188 total yards including 145 rushing on 22 carries) had big games, but also big blunders.
Davis dropped a much-needed touchdown catch at the 5-yard line. Michel coughed up a kickoff return to give the Vols a short field, a touchdown and more momentum as they dug back from a 21-point deficit.
“Just all the way around, our team, the offense needs to execute better, the defense need to execute better, special teams can certainly get better as we go as well,” Richt said. “Some good things happened in the special teams obviously but when you turn it over deep in your territory when you grab a lot of momentum and a little bit of separation. It was sad that happened the way it did to kind of give them juice going into the locker room.
Tennessee didn’t sound too worried about trailing 24-3.
At least offensive tackle Kyle Kerbyson said so.
“As an offense, we knew they couldn’t stop us,” he said. “Yeah, we fumbled on the one-yard line and they took it back, but we took it 80 yards on them. They didn’t have an answer for the offense, so that’s the attitude we went out there with, ‘Hey, they can’t stop us, we’re going to be all right, we’re going to keep scoring, as long as the defense comes up with a few stops, we’re going to win this game.’”
Well, he was right. A Tennessee team that blew double-digits leads to Oklahoma, Florida and Arkansas was on the other end of a collapse this time.
Georgia officials didn’t know the last time the Bulldogs had lost a game in which it led by 21 points. The Associated Press reported it had been since at least 1996, the earliest year STATS LLC had on file.,
Georgia, ranked No. 16 by the coaches and No. 19 in the AP, could drop out of the polls Sunday.
The Bulldogs, now 4-2 and 2-2 in the SEC, need to beat Missouri Saturday to avoid falling under .500 in league play.
“We’ll keep fighting,” receiver Malcolm Mitchell said, “because we hate losing regardless of what the record is.”
Whether it’s a butt-kicking by Alabama 38-10 or a topsy-turvy game when your best player goes down and you can’t make a final play to tie.
“It’s just no good losing,” Richt said. “We’ve got to deal with it. We’ve got to stick together. We’ve got to work hard and find ways to improve to the point where we can get that victory next week.”
...READ MORE HERE...
October 10th, 2015 09:58 PM
Knoxville, Tenn. | Mark Richt began his postgame comments Saturday night mentioning how he wanted to avoid cutting his finger on a chair like he did his last time here in 2013 in his news conference in the same room.
The Georgia couldn’t avoid losing a running back on the Neyland Stadium field for the second straight trip here. Keith Marshall tore an ACL two years ago.
This time stud running back Nick Chubb went down with an ugly knee injury on the first play that was hard to watch on replay. It had to be a season-ender, the world thought, but Richt was talking afterwards about how he was optimistic that Chubb could avoid surgery but he wasn’t 100 percent sure of that.
There wasn’t much for a Georgia fan to be optimistic about after the 38-31 loss.
Where to begin?
How about the tackling? Oh, the tackling.
Josh Dobbs and company had a lot of Georgia players swing and miss bringing them down on a night the Vols amassed 519 yards of offense.
“We knew he was a good athlete,” Richt said. “We knew he was a big, tough kid. He played inspired ball tonight. Really became a tackle breaker maybe even more so than I would have expected. We had a harder time once we got to him just getting him to the ground.”
Added defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt: “No 1 for them (Jalen Hurd) is a big man and when you let him get going, aight, you’ve got to bring your feet and we didn’t do that on occasion.”
Hurd had 80 yards on 21 carries.
Reggie Davis (three catches for 101 yards and touchdown and 70-yard punt return touchdown) and Sony Michel (188 total yards including 145 rushing on 22 carries) had big games, but also big blunders.
Davis dropped a much-needed touchdown catch at the 5-yard line. Michel coughed up a kickoff return to give the Vols a short field, a touchdown and more momentum as they dug back from a 21-point deficit.
“Just all the way around, our team, the offense needs to execute better, the defense need to execute better, special teams can certainly get better as we go as well,” Richt said. “Some good things happened in the special teams obviously but when you turn it over deep in your territory when you grab a lot of momentum and a little bit of separation. It was sad that happened the way it did to kind of give them juice going into the locker room.
Tennessee didn’t sound too worried about trailing 24-3.
At least offensive tackle Kyle Kerbyson said so.
“As an offense, we knew they couldn’t stop us,” he said. “Yeah, we fumbled on the one-yard line and they took it back, but we took it 80 yards on them. They didn’t have an answer for the offense, so that’s the attitude we went out there with, ‘Hey, they can’t stop us, we’re going to be all right, we’re going to keep scoring, as long as the defense comes up with a few stops, we’re going to win this game.’”
Well, he was right. A Tennessee team that blew double-digits leads to Oklahoma, Florida and Arkansas was on the other end of a collapse this time.
Georgia officials didn’t know the last time the Bulldogs had lost a game in which it led by 21 points. The Associated Press reported it had been since at least 1996, the earliest year STATS LLC had on file.,
Georgia, ranked No. 16 by the coaches and No. 19 in the AP, could drop out of the polls Sunday.
The Bulldogs, now 4-2 and 2-2 in the SEC, need to beat Missouri Saturday to avoid falling under .500 in league play.
“We’ll keep fighting,” receiver Malcolm Mitchell said, “because we hate losing regardless of what the record is.”
Whether it’s a butt-kicking by Alabama 38-10 or a topsy-turvy game when your best player goes down and you can’t make a final play to tie.
“It’s just no good losing,” Richt said. “We’ve got to deal with it. We’ve got to stick together. We’ve got to work hard and find ways to improve to the point where we can get that victory next week.”
...READ MORE HERE...
