Parker: Trouble at Rocky Top

Florida's Troy Epps levels Tennessee's Montario Hardesty, causing a fumble. It would have been Hardesty's second fumble on the day, but the runner was ruled down.
(T-G Photo by Danny Parker)

[Click to enlarge]

Point fingers wherever you want and toss out all the 'What ifs' but at the end of the day the Tennessee Volunteers are unranked, carrying a record of 1-2 and hearing boos in Neyland Stadium.

"There's probably not anybody very happy with me right now. There's probably not very many people happy with the quarterback right now," UT coach Phillip Fulmer said after Saturday's 30-6 defeat at the hands of rival No. 4 Florida.

He's right on both fronts.

Chatter is already coming down off The Hill about who the candidates are to replace Fulmer. We've been here before.

All the blame can't be placed on the coach even though he asked for it to be. He also couldn't quite put his finger on how what happened took place.

"Obviously our team was up tight or something because that wasn't us," he said.

Small mistakes against a high-caliber team like Florida turn into lightning rods of opportunity. They took advantage of poor special teams play and turnovers to jump out in front 17-0 before CBS hardly had a chance to run through the starting lineups.

Before the Vols knew what hit them, it was 27-0 and several faithful dressed up like empty seats for the latter parts of the game.

The score at the half could have and should have been 17-14. Two turnovers at the goal line cost them potentially 14 points. Montario Hardesty's fumble on the opening drive put the ball in Florida hands in UT territory. As any good team will, they capitalized with a Jonathan Phillips 39-yard field goal.

"Anytime you don't get points in the red zone it hurts, especially on the 1-yard line," Crompton said.

"We shoot ourselves in the foot sometimes."

Crompton pulled his own trigger on the first red zone cough up by ignoring basic fundamentals that most high school quarterbacks pride themselves on. While pulling away from center a QB should keep the ball close to their body until the fullback clears before handing the ball off.

Crompton didn't, the pigskin went flying and the head shaking continued.

Poor clock management and miscommunicated play-calling at the end of the first half resulted in zero points and an interception by Florida's Janoris Jenkins.

It just doesn't look like Crompton's getting the job done. He's now 1-3 as a starter, not including a loss to LSU two years ago when he saw a majority of the snaps. It might be time to shorten the leash a little and get Nick Stephens or B.J. Coleman some more snaps during the week.

Lost in all this is how solid the Tennessee defense was.

Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and all-everything athlete Percy Harvin were held to a total of 202 yards. The team netted 243 yards.

You can't say anyone on that side of the ball quit either. The game was decided long before the final whistle and Florida looked to their running game to chew clock and keep the ball. However, they averaged only 3.8 yards per carry on 39 attempts.

Crompton threw a ball behind Lucas Taylor on fourth-and-two with just over seven minutes left. That gave the Gators a short field to work with yet again. Florida got some yards but the UT defense did keep them out of the end zone after coming up with a stand on fourth down at the Vol 12.

The schedule doesn't lighten up the least bit. They have road trips to No. 3 Georgia, No. 15 Auburn and No. 21 Vanderbilt. Alabama looks like one of the hottest teams in the country and moved up in the polls to No. 8.

"We started out 1-2 last year and look where we ended up, in the championship game and had a great shot to win it," Crompton said. "That's this team's mentality. If you want to doubt us, then doubt us. We know what we're capable of. When we start clickin' we're going to start clickin'."

Anybody seen a clicker laying around?

Danny Parker is sports editor of the Times-Gazette. He can be reached at dparker@t-g.com.