Tennessee HC Josh Heupel, Players Self-Accountable After Loss

The Tennessee players and coach chalked up the Alabama loss to their own mistakes.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— In the immediate aftermath of No. 17 Tennessee's 34-20 loss against No. 11 Alabama, costing the Volunteers a repeat in the Third Saturday in October rivalry, head coach Josh Heupel and Tennessee players largely blamed the result on mistakes they made.

Tennessee (5-2) didn't score even once in the second half, though it had a number of red zone chances. The Volunteers also made the decision to go for it on fourth down multiple times, including once in the second half in its own territory while leading (which did not convert). Halfway through the fourth quarter, Alabama's Jihaad Campbell took a Volunteer fumble into the end zone for the game-sealing touchdown. Those were some of the key moments that allowed the Crimson Tide to reestablish itself in the game and, in turn, take hold of the momentum.

"In the second half, they played extremely well," Heupel said. "In the second half, we just weren't good enough, from me, to our coaches, to our players. Gotta be able to play for 60 minutes against a good football team.

Extremely disappointed in the outcome."

Quarterback Joe Milton, who completed 28 passes for 271 yards, didn't feel that the team played at a high level, and that sometimes players missed doing their jobs. He took it upon himself to claim responsibility for this.

"We just [weren't] assignment sound. Certain guys wasn't doing their jobs," Milton said. "I'll take full responsibility for that, just because I'm the quarterback, but I lead this team. This is my team."

Milton elaborated that he felt the result was directly tied to the fact that he and his teammates got away from doing their jobs. The Volunteer offense was firing on all cylinders in the first half, taking a 20-7 advantage into the locker room. "[I didn't] play at a high level. Because we lost. I didn't play at a high level either." Alabama came out of the locker room and scored in less than one minute. Even then, Tennessee still had the advantage, but couldn't put together what it needed to respond and seize the momentum back.

"There's some things that we didn't do well enough," Heupel said. "We did, at times, offensively, [not] put it in when we got down there." A specific point he referenced was turning over the rock with approximately seven and a half minutes left in the game. Milton fumbled, Alabama took it all the way back, and Tennessee never recovered. "[We had] a chance to make it a game." Heupel appeared to have at least some gripe with the officiating, pausing for about 20 seconds postgame before asking whether that silence had endured long enough, ostensibly to get his point across. However, he continued to circle back to things his team failed to do well enough.

Wide receiver Squirrel White, who established a connection with Milton early on and helped set the tone by catching the game's first touchdown, thought that the Volunteers' energy after the break was strong, and expressed confusion as to why his team fell flat. "I really don't know what happened there," he said. "They just got a lot of momentum going... We just tried to get the energy going on the sideline. Their [Alabama] fans are loud and stuff. We couldn't just feed into that, get all down and stuff."

"As a team, we've gotta take full responsibility," Milton said. "We've gotta be able to communicate... Everybody on the team has a wristband on their left or right wrist that says 'Take a deep breath. Just breathe.' Where are we right now? We're right here, right now. Just being able to just take a deep breath, understand where you're at, embrace the moments. 

"We all prayed for moments like these when we were younger... Just do your job, that's all that matters." He emphasized coming out swinging early, though that was far from the problem. Almost the complete opposite was what did Tennessee in. The Volunteers failed to follow up when the opponent was compromised, and let momentum swing the other way until such a point that it could not be restored. Heupel shared his quarterback's sentiments that doing one's job is what counts. 

The result doesn't change, mistakes or otherwise. Tennessee had Bryant-Denny Stadium hushed. In the end, it didn't matter. Once Alabama got moving, the Volunteers didn't counter. It wasn't so much a single point in the game (though the fumble that got returned for a touchdown might beg to differ) as it was this fact. To Milton's point, Alabama, rather than Tennessee, came out swinging early in the second half. In the long run, that paid off with a victory.

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