Performances and results often reach the same destination, but they’re not the same thing. The better you perform, the more likely you’ll get a good result. But there’s no guarantee in that. Sometimes you perform well and get a bad result, and sometimes you perform poorly and get a good result. That’s sports, and that’s life.
The Tennessee football team just got another great result from a not-so-great performance. The seventh-ranked Vols overcame another outrageously un-opportunistic first half but put together another stronger second half and got another great result — a 28-18 win over Beer Barrel rival Kentucky in the annual Dark Mode game at Neyland Stadium.
We’ll see how things get sorted with the College Football Playoff committee — Tuesday’s initial CFP rankings will give us at a decent idea on this committee’s thoughts — but this has been a bizarre season across the country, and this writer would want no part of that committee. There’s more wiggle room in this expanded, 12-team field, but every weekend continues to congest the field. South Carolina’s upset win over Texas A&M on Saturday night in Columbia eliminated the last unblemished record in the expanded SEC. And that’s just the SEC. Fourth-ranked Ohio State put a 20-13 loss on fourth-ranked Penn State, giving the Nittany Lions their first loss of the season. Texas Tech upset 11th-ranked Iowa State in Ames, giving the Cyclones their first setback of the season. Louisville shocked also-11th-ranked Clemson in Clemson, giving the Tigers their first ACC loss and second overall loss of the season. Houston upset 17th-ranked Kansas State, giving the Wildcats their second loss of the season. The 20th-ranked SMU Mustangs beat 18th-ranked Pitt, giving the Panthers their first loss of the season. Minnesota upset 24th-ranked Illinois, giving the Illini their third loss of the season.
This is carnage, and it’s occurring every weekend. Oregon — which, remember, beat Ohio State — is sitting awful pretty an 8-0, and the Ducks beat Michigan on Saturday in Ann Arbor.
Everything behind the Ducks is messy. The water in their wake is wild. Even second-ranked Georgia — which lost earlier this season at currently-14th-ranked Alabama — got a large scare from Florida on Saturday, needing some big plays in the fourth quarter to hold off the Gators in the annual Cutoff-Denim Cocktail Party in Jacksonville.
Getting the point yet? This season is messy. Really messy. Tennessee has made things harder than they needed to be in all five of its SEC games, but the Vols won four of those five games. If they’d taken care of business and held their fourth-quarter lead at Arkansas in early October, they’d be sitting beautifully at No. 2 nationally heading into the final four games of the regular season. Even with the loss in Fayettenam, though, they’ll probably be No. 6 nationally in both major polls and somewhere in that neighborhood in the first CFP rankings.
The closest thing to a great performance for Tennessee in league play probably was the 25-15 win at then-15th-ranked Oklahoma in the Sooners’ first game in Sooners’ history. And the Vols were far from great that night. But they controlled that game and were never in any danger of dropping it. They had a 19-3 lead at halftime and intelligently managed the second half on the road in a rowdy environment.
Nothing from that point forward has ever felt truly secure for this team, though, thanks to an offense that has scored exactly seven total points in the first halves of the past four games. No Josh Heupel team had ever gone scoreless in the first half until Tennessee traveled to Arkansas and took the first of what would be three consecutive games with a first-half total of (eff)-all points. The Vols did score seven points in the first half of Saturday’s game against Kentucky, but for second consecutive game they left perhaps 30 points on the field in the first two quarters.
Four of Tennessee’s first five possessions took the ball at least to the Kentucky 22-yard line, and the only one that didn’t included a dropped, would-be touchdown pass from redshirt freshman Nico Iamaleava to sophomore receiver Chris Brazzell II. What absolutely could have been as many as 35 points was just seven points.
Then the Vols again took the ball into the red zone to open the third quarter, and again they came away with nothing. Setting aside a desperation drive with less than a half-minute left in the second quarter, five of Tennessee’s first six drives took the ball at least to the Kentucky 22-yard line, and the only one that didn’t included that dropped, would-be touchdown pass from Iamaleava to Brazzell. What absolutely could have been as many as 42 points was just seven points, and the Vols were in a 10-7 hole when Kentucky took possession at its own 28-yard line with 10:05 left in the third quarter.
One lost fumble, two dropped passes in the end zone and three missed field-goal attempts left Tennessee trailing in a game that should already have been put to bed.
To the Vols’ genuine credit, they again got off the mat and rallied from behind in the second half to win a game. They’ve done that in three consecutive games, which means it ain’t a coincidence. But they’ve also been dreadfully inefficient in the first half in four consecutive games, so that ain’t a coincidence, either.
Remember, though, performances and results are different things, and this is a results-oriented business. Only a fool would pick performing well in a loss over performing poorly in a win. Tennessee is one of the 10 winningest programs in NCAA Division I football history, but the Vols haven’t won enough in recent years for anyone to be apoplectic about a 7-1 team that’s ranked in the top six nationally and remains in full control of its own destiny heading toward mid-November.
Frustration is fair, though. It’s absolutely fair. Even in Saturday’s mostly-solid second half, the Vols missed another field goal attempt and dropped a third would-be touchdown pass. That was by far the best Iamaleava has thrown the ball against a solid opponent, and it should have been a 400-yard, four-touchdown performance. But those three drops changed the result to a still-solid 28-of-38 for 292 yards, one score and no picks.
As difficult as it is to criticize anything about junior running back Dylan Sampson during this stunning season he’d putting together, the fact is he’d never lost a fumble at the college level until the Alabama game, and now he’s lost one in two consecutive games. He more than made up for that in both games, but if he loses another fumble next week against Mississippi State in this same stadium, that would officially be a troubling trend.
Tennessee has a championship-caliber defense, and everyone — including yours truly — needs to stop questioning that after the ninth consecutive game where an opponent failed to score 20 points. The tackling against Kentucky was arguably worse than it’s been in a while, and there were more bad run fits than usual, as well, but the defense was great every time it needed to be great, forcing three turnovers and getting two stops on Kentucky’s only two fourth-down attempts. The Wildcats took just two drives into the red zone, and one of them ended with a turnover on downs inside the 5-yard line.
As we all know by this point, the other side of the ball is Tennessee’s issue.
Penalties, protection breakdowns and dropped passes are not bugs in this offense. They are features. No argument to the contrary holds water. This offense has more than enough pieces to be explosive, but it refuses to get out of its own way. Iamaleava was sharper than ever Saturday. He was remarkably accurate, putting everything from layups to NFL-caliber throws on target and mostly on time. He wasn’t perfect, but he was genuinely outstanding, and those around him let him down too many times. Iamaleava’s performances were part of the problem during the Vols’ Oktoberfest of First-Half Offensive Fail, but he started November in style. That was a performance to build on moving forward, and in the here-and-now it helped Tennessee get a great result.
This mind can’t decide whether to join forced with the optimistic or pessimistic parts of the Tennessee fan base vis-à-vis the offense. We’ve all seen every link in that offensive chain look great at times this season, and the optimistic folks believe those pieces can still be put together. The pessimistic lot counter with an equally persuasive postulation that it’s November, and those pieces haven’t come together for 60 minutes against a good team. If this were baseball and yours truly were an umpire, the view would be a 50-50 pitch on the black. When in doubt, perhaps the Andy Dufresne path of clinging to hope is the righteous path. That way lies the potential of serious heartbreak, but that’s life. Why close any door that circumstances have kept open for you?
What’s inarguable, though, is this: Tennessee has gotten enough good results to maintain control of its championship fate, and there are just four regular-season games left, and the Vols almost certainly will be favored in three of them. They’ll be underdogs only in the Nov. 16 game at Georgia, but the Bulldogs also have plenty of problems at the moment.
Tennessee has to improve in so many ways to maintain that control, but so does practically every team in college football at this point. The Vols have an elite defense and an offense that has more than enough pieces to put more than enough points on the board, and despite some recent special teams wobbles, they win that third of the game much more often than they lose it.
Nothing should feel impossible or unattainable for this team. It just has to continue grinding out good results while continuing its potentially quixotic quest for a truly great performance. It will need to great at some point, but good-enough has been good enough to this point. Tennessee is still in the fight and still has the potential to prove itself special.
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