'Long yard right there': Josh Heupel explains Tennessee's failed 4th-and-1 in Oklahoma loss

Tennessee faced fourth-and-1 at the Oklahoma 37-yard line with 8:11 left in the fourth quarter Saturday night at Neyland Stadium. The Vols trailed 26-17 and had their jumbo package on the field, with both tight ends Miles Kitselman and Jack Van Dorselaer lined up in the backfield. 

Quarterback Joey Aguilar threw to an open Van Dorselaer on the play-action pass, but the freshman’s head wasn’t turned around when the pass arrived. What would have been a first down to keep the drive alive was nothing more than a football bouncing off a facemask. 

The play unfolded directly in front of head coach on Josh Heupel on the Tennessee sideline. All he could do was double over with his play sheet in hand as the ball bounced to the turf. 

“Long yard right there,” Heupel said after the 33-27 loss at Neyland Stadium. “(Oklahoma has) been good in those situations and had something that we thought, as multiple as they are in that situation, that would give us a chance. 

“And (Van Dorselaer) gets hung up a little bit coming around the edge.”

Joey Aguilar: 393 yards passing, 3 touchdowns, 3 turnovers

To make matters worse, Tennessee had to waste a timeout with the play clock expiring, going from 8:43 to 8:12, after running the heavy set onto the field. 

“We were just behind in the sequence of it,” Heupel said.

That long yard and the long sequence summed up a long night. 

Joey Aguilar threw for 393 yards and three touchdowns for Tennessee (6-3, 3-3 SEC), but he accounted for three turnovers. 

Oklahoma (7-2, 3-2) turned a strip sack into a 71-yard fumble return for a touchdown to tie the game in the first quarter, then intercepted Aguilar twice in the second quarter, taking a 16-10 lead into halftime.

Tennessee in the first half had 254 yards to Oklahoma’s 99, had 17 first downs to Oklahoma’s five and held the Sooners to 1-for-5 on third down. But the Vols gave up 16 points on the three turnovers and couldn’t turn the momentum back in the second half. 

“Obviously extremely disappointed with the outcome,” Heupel said. “Everybody in program is extremely disappointed … give them 16 points in the first half and just can’t win that way. They’re a good football team.” 

“We got to play smarter,” Heupel added, “to win a game like that.” 

Heupel said Aguilar’s first interception was a product of the Tennessee quarterback throwing off his back foot, trying to make a play. The second one was disguised coverage, both Heupel and Aguilar said, that led an to easy Oklahoma pick. 

“The one before halftime,” Aguilar said, “just kind of forced it downfield, trying to stay in the pocket and make a throw while getting hit. Kind of just sailed it. And then the first one, they did a good job disguising the coverage right there. Rolled down, went into cover one, safety rolled over to the field. They got me on that one.”

‘The defense gave us turnovers and offensively we didn’t execute on those’

Aguilar threw a 54-yard touchdown to Braylon Staley early in the third quarter, after Tennessee’s defense forced a punt. But it would be Oklahoma’s last punt of the game. 

Tennessee recovered an Oklahoma fumble with 6:47 left in the third quarter, with the Vols leading 17-16 at the time, but went three-and-out and punted back to the Sooners.

Edwin Spillman picked off Oklahoma quarterback John Mateer with 3:49 left, Tennessee trailing 26-17, but it took the Vols two minutes, 22 seconds to score — on the other side of the two-minute timeout — leading to the first of two failed onside kicks, with Vols having only two timeouts. 

“Those mistakes … obviously hurts a lot,” Aguilar said, “to put my team in a better position to put points up. The defense gave us turnovers and offensively we didn’t execute on those. 

“So to go back and see those mistakes that I could clean up just makes it hard and frustrating. But you just got to watch it and flush it.”