Our defense was rough against South Carolina. Their only three-and-out the entire game was the opening drive. After that, their drive chart went like this: INT FG (from the 2) PUNT TD TD TD FG (from the 8) Victory formation (from the UT 14) Basically, they ran up and down the field on us at will. They made it inside our 15-yard line on six of their last seven drives. Our offense actually played pretty well, and would've had a real chance to win it without all the self-inflicted wounds (specifically, the false starts and unsportsmanlike conducts). But our defense got carved up. And solid defensive performances against two teams with trash offenses does not make me think that all the problems have been repaired. We are going to have a hard time keeping Missouri in the low 20s. If we do, I think we win.
I tend to agree. I haven't seen enough to have confidence that we can stop a decent-to-good offense with any level of consistency. HOWEVER... that game showed how worn out the team was after a pretty grueling stretch of games. Kongbo was out and Deandre Johnson wasn't up to speed yet and didn't play in the game... IIRC we played mostly out of a 3-3, correct me if I'm wrong. To me, this was pretty significant in stopping the run. Abernathy was out. It was a night game on the road as well. DJ looked good against Kentucky and Abernathy was sorely missed. We're a different D with Abernathy out there.
Call it an excuse, but we had an emotional road win at auburn, then Bama, then on road for a night game against a team coming off a bye. Im hoping that lax D effort was mental and physical fatigue vs fresh and healthy legs. Also imo why pruitt took some odd chances on offense. D was toast after 1 Saturday off in a brutal stretch. Edit:i didnt see the above post mentioning same thing
And even with all that were 1 stop or one score from winning a game most thought we wouldn't. On the road. I don't think we need them in the low 20's. They'll yield more points than AU, SC and UK did with the same offensive efforts we had against those 3.
Vols- 24 MethTigers- 23 Dooley catches a bad lunch from Calhouns, craps on his gold britches, has to change to black britches, Vols win a close one.
That is a fair point (from ssmiff as well). Thinking back, I do remember being pessimistic coming into that game because USC was coming off a bye and we were coming off Auburn/Bama and missing at least one key starter. Now three weeks later I'd forgotten the context and just looked at the poor D. In reality, Kentucky probably made us look better than we are on defense, and South Carolina probably made us look worse than we are on defense. Missouri is still going to be a lot tougher to stop than Kentucky, but it is possible that I've been overly pessimistic about the D. And on offense. . . well, we *look* more competent. Looking back at the stats, we haven't been held under 300 yards by anyone except Alabama and Georgia, and we've managed 350+ in every game except Bama, UGA, and WVU. But against Florida, we were just playing from so far behind that it's easier to rack up yardage. Against Auburn, South Carolina, and Kentucky, it felt like we were actually moving the ball, and not because they were just giving us short completions because we were so far behind. We had ~400 yards against both AU and Kentucky, and we probably could've against South Carolina if we hadn't taken like seven false start penalties (plus an unnecessary roughness that took us out of FG range). So I definitely feel good about us getting into the 20s against Missouri. The question is whether we can get into the 30s--which our offense hasn't done against an FBS team all season--and whether we can hold their offense in check.
If we can find 30 against AU and 24 against UK, 24 against SC (coming off that bye week), with a similar performance we'll find 30+ against Mizzou.
I remember that happening. I was so hyped for that Florida game and when Hunter went down it felt like the air went out of the entire season.
