Orange Colored Glasses- UCLA

Well well well...or not so well. i mean i thought that it would be a good thing that i didnt recap this game right away, but it seems like the more i distance myself from this debacle the worse it gets. and before i go any further answer me this- "would you rather watch your favorite team get beat at home in a game they shouldve won, or have a flat tire after the game?" cause i got to do both.
but lets talk about the good things of the game- ok moving on.
haha no seriously there were some good things to point out. punter chad cunningham had almost a 50yd avg which is pretty darn good. kicker daniel lincoln kicked 4 successful field goals- too bad he only got credit for 2 of them. and lets be honest our D played extremely well. their average field position was at the plus 37 for for the game and only one qtr did they average starting on the opposite side of midfield. and we still held those jokers to 19 pts and 185 yds of offense. that doesnt bode well for them the rest of the year. and its pretty crazy that we have only given up 268 and 26 so far. we might do that in the first half against florida. but other than another stand out defensive performance and a pretty good one on special teams- which will play a major factor in several games for us this year that about it. i say that they will be important- and when you look at how good our D is and then how poorly we have played on offense at stretches it may take a fg or a good punt return or something of that nature to get us an extra win.
now for the bad- 4 turnovers from your qb in 4 straight possessions should get you beat against most anybody. but despite all that, we still had the ball twice in the last 4 min and couldnt score to win. we did run for 150 yds, but when we needed a yard the most, we couldnt get it. which i do question that call from all of our great coaches. and yes i do have hindsight bias. but call a better play and we win. but i think that all of our fans can agree on these next few point. A- our top wideout gerald jones had zero catches. B- our leading reciever coming into the game marsellous teague had zero catches. C- nukese richardson didnt have a touch on offense. so why do we not get the ball to our best playmakers? somebody answer me this. i dont care how you do it but get them the ball. oh and here is another thing. i dont give a dang about next year. let EB do whatever he can to help us win. i mean its like the colts telling manning "hey peyton we only want you to play in the 1st and 3rd. ok?" yeah you get my point why take your best player out when he can help you. lanetrain- hes not coming back, but he could get you some wins this year. (side note- go check out our recruits coming in. sick defensive linemen)
worse news- and this is not a phil fulmer/lane kiffin thing. crompton will be our qb. dont fault fulmer for recruiting him- he was ranked #2 in the nation coming out of high school. dont fault kiffin for playing him. lets face it- if nick stephens cant beat out crompton under two different staffs then he just cant beat him out- i say he is worse. they arent going to play stephens i dont think, because if they do, then they look like morons for not playing BJ- who btw is lighting up the socon. and lets be honest even if BJ/stephen is qb its not like we were gonna go 14-0 and they think that crompton can get UT 7-9 wins this year. of course im sure that they were counting ucla a dub just like i was.
florida prediction= seeing how i am a realist i didnt see that this game was going to be a win even before the ucla game. we are a 30 pt underdog- maybe never has happened in UT history before. but i wouldnt take the points if i were you. sure we can slow them down a little with our defense, but they will still have some drives and they will still score some. what you cant count on is how many times will we give them a short field/touchdown because of a turnover? or will return specialist brandon james get his 4th td return in 4 games against the vols? just for arguments sake say we do kick it away from him all game, and we dont turn it over, and we do slow them down...how in the world are we going to score? we only scored 13 pts on offense last week-7 of those coming on a 12 td run after a fumble. and that was against ucla- a middle of the road team...in the pac-10!!! and lets be real. florida has beat the crap out of us the last 2 years anyways. and even if they do run it up-which im sure that they will in some way- just think how sweet the revenge will be in knoxville next year. final score. florida-42 tennessee-3

some more food for thought. any true UT fan would tell you we would lose to florida, alabama, and ole miss this year, not that they want them to, but realistically we dont have much of a shot. wku was a great win and ucla was a great loss. lets not get too bent out of shape about our team. wait until the gaunlet of auburn, south carolina, and georgia come through and then we will talk about where we stand.

PUDGE