Tennessee players react to loss at Missouri
Tennessee dropped their third game of the season in falling to Missouri on the road to a much more prepared and hungry Tiger team.
The seven points were the lowest for a Tennessee team since Josh Heupel’s arrival and Tennessee managed to pick up just 350 yards of total offense compared to 530 for Missouri.
Tennessee managed to run just three plays in the first quarter while Missouri got off 24 offensive snaps, yet all of that led to just a lone field goal and a 3-0 second quarter lead for the Tigers.
“We were shooting ourselves in the foot, pretty much the same thing that happened in the Florida game with all the stuff; false starts, holding, things like that that can kill a drive. That’s what happened,” Joe Milton said of the Vols offense.
The Vols didn’t need much time to respond after falling behind 3-0. Dont’e Thornton made a sliding catch on a 46-yard touchdown pass from Joe Milton to give Tennessee the lead. Thornton appeared to hurt his right leg on the catch. The drive went 75 yards in six plays. Milton was efficient once again but the Vols simply didn’t do enough to finish off drives.
“We were shooting ourselves in the foot, pretty much the same thing that happened in the Florida game with all the stuff; false starts, holding, things like that that can kill a drive. That’s what happened,” Joe Milton said of the Vols offense.
Tennessee struggled to make plays and get off the field on defense. Missouri tailback Cody Schrader ran 18 times for 105 yards and caught three passes for 93 yards in the first half alone. Schrader finished with 205 yards rushing and 321 yards of total offense. Tennessee had just 29 more yards as a team.
“I think they just moved around a little bit, got us out of our gaps. We weren’t fundamentally sound and when you’re not fundamentally sound the results are going to show that,” defensive back Gabe Jeudy-Lally said.
“We just have to go out there and do our jobs, play with clean eyes is the biggest thing. If your eyes are in the right place you have the ability to make the play.
‘As a defense we just have to go out and make the plays when they’re given to us. I think we beat ourselves sometimes.
Tennessee had multiple busts in the secondary which allowed Brady Cook to do just like his name states, ‘cook’. Minus an early interception, the Tiger quarterback looked strong. Cook completed 18-of-24 throws for 275 yards with one touchdown. He added 55 yards rushing and had multiple back-breaking scrambles on third and long that kept drives alive.
“We knew the quarterback was a good athlete an we’ve got to commend him. He made some good plays on third down when we had it covered up pretty well. At the end of the day we’ve just got to be able to tackle the quarterback before the first down,” Jeudy-Lally shared.
