Tennessee football: Five takeaways from Vols’ 34-3 loss at Florida
Another day, another Tennessee football loss at Florida. Here are five takeaways from the Gators’ 34-3 victory over the Volunteers.
Who’s not used to this by now? Tennessee football once again fell to the Florida Gators, their third straight loss in the series and 14th loss in 15 years. The Vols dropped to 1-3 on the season, and they still have yet to beat a Power Five team.
Midway through the second quarter, they were hanging tough, only trailing 7-0 after giving up a touchdown on the opening drive. But a series of mistakes kept them from tying it up and making this interesting.
Included in those mistakes were a penalty by K’Rojhn Calbert to stall one offensive drive, an interception on the goal line after a Florida fumble spotted them the ball in the red zone, and then Jarrett Guarantano completely missing Dominick Wood-Anderson for an easy touchdown. He later threw an interception on that drive that spotted UF a 10-0 lead.
Eventually, the Gators got the ball back, and they moved down the field late in the second half to snatch the hearts out of Tennessee football. They scored a touchdown on 4th and goal from the two-yard line as time expired at halftime to go up 17-0.
In the second half, it was more of the same. The offense got a field goal with Brian Maurer in there on the opening drive, but the Gators responded with a second touchdown pass from Kyle Trask to go up 17-0. And the UT offense under Maurer couldn’t get much going after that.
Trask threw two interceptions in the second half, but the Vols had an interception, a punt and then a fumble to open the fourth quarter as they put Jarrett Guarantano back in. Florida scored anothert touchdown off that fourth-quarter fumble to go up 31-3.
Then, late in the game, they hit another field goal to win the game 34-3. It was total domination on The Swamp, as the No. 9 ranked Gators walked away with their 14th victory over UT in 15 tries and moved to 4-0 with three victories over Power Five schools. UT fell to 1-3 and is still yet to beat an FCS school. Here are five takeaways from Tennessee football’s loss in Gainesville.