Tennessee football: Five takeaways from Vols’ loss to Georgia Bulldogs

5. Nobody quit fighting.

Say what you want about a blowout loss, but a 1-3 Tennessee football team that was falling to 1-4 did not quit. The Vols kept playing, and you saw a ton of emotion from so many players even as the game began to get out of hand.

It really showed when they got a crucial stop late on a fourth down. Still down 29-14, the defense was struggling, and Brian Maurer had just thrown an interception on the previous drive. But they managed to get more momentum for themselves with such a stop.

Then, as Georgia went up 36-14, the Vols started moving the ball again on the next drive. The wideouts kept playing, as did Brian Maurer. However, Maurer was hit on a blitz, fumbled the ball and had it returned for a touchdown the other way. That’s where the 43-14 loss came from.

After that, UT still didn’t quit. The hit on Maurer knocked him out for the game, and Jarrett Guarantano had to come in on the final drive. He and Tim Jordan led the Vols to the Georgia five-yard line before their horrible red-zone offense was exposed again, and they got stopped on fourth down to secure the score at 43-14.

Sure, that’s not much to brag about. But people that keep playing deserve some credit, and that applies to the Vols in this game. So it was worth praising them over, and it could bode well for them the rest of the year.