Early on against Georgia, it sure looked like it was going to be a night to remember for Josh Heupel and the Tennessee Volunteers. The team jumped out to a 10-0 lead, highlighted by a surprise one-yard touchdown run from Miles Kitselman.
After that, however, Georgia went on to outscore the Vols 31-7 to post a memorable 31-17 win in Athens. It brought Tennessee back down to earth a bit and it surely has served as a wake-up call for the players inside of the locker room.
Just ask Kitselman about that. The veteran TE, who transferred in from Alabama, was not happy at all following the final whistle and he was still pretty ticked off while meeting with reporters on Monday. Kitselman called the team out a bit and understandably so, saying they shot themselves in the foot under the bright lights on the road.
Tennessee TE Miles Kitselman expects the Vols to bounce back after losing to UGA
"Georgia is a great team that played a hell of a game, but we just shot ourselves in the foot so many times," Kitselman said. "We missed so many chances that would have changed that game. I'm sick of talking about it, thinking about it. We have to move on now. Flush it."
With the loss, Tennessee is now 8-2 on the year and ranked the No. 10 team in the country according to the latest AP Top 25. Soon enough, the new College Football Playoff rankings will be released and there's plenty of worry the committee might end up leaving Heupel and Co. outside of the Top 12.
Tennessee has two more games left to make a statement, taking on UTEP this weekend, followed by the season-finale against Vanderbilt. The Vols had a chance to send a message against Georgia, but they didn't get the job done. As Kitselman said, it's time to flush the loss and focus on these next two games.
The Vols were nowhere close to their best against Georgia, which can't be the case the rest of the way. They didn't get any help from the officials, but that's not why they lost. We'll see if Kitselman's quote above will hit home to the fellow playmakers on the team, as they need to recover from the disappointing result in Week 12 and take care of business vs. UTEP.