Wow, who saw that coming? I mean seriously, what the heck happened up there? That was a complete disaster on both sides of the ball (all sides including special teams). Juts a completely disheartening game. Oh well, these things happen I suppose, but it’s certainly worrisome that we’re now sitting at 0-6 in our last 6 SEC East games and have come out flat with more frequency than I can remember under Richt. We’ve got to step up and get better and we’ve got to do it quickly. A UT loss last year started a mid-season funk that saw us lose 4 of 5. We can’t afford to have that happen again. My heart can’t take it.

About the UT game

Man there’s really not much good you can say about that game other than it’s over. We got completely worked in every phase. The stuff we thought we knew was wrong and not just a little bit wrong. Kinda like thinking you did OK on a test and finding out you made a 50. That 50’s probably generous if you were scoring our performance Saturday…probably should be closer to single digits.

You’d have a really hard time figuring out which unit (offense or defense) laid the bigger egg on Saturday. Both flopped spectacularly. On offense, we looked disjointed and unfocused. The running game we thought we had “discovered” was non-existent and the passing game saw lots of pressure on Stafford and lots of resultant poor passes. The defense was just indescribable. Bad against the pass, worse against the run. We never seemed to stop them and it was 28-0 before reality really set in. That was about the time I realized we were in trouble. It was like one of those kung-fu movies where the guy gets hit 10 times before he ever reacts. That guy was UGA this week.

As bad as the first half was though, you just knew that if we could muster a score late, the 2nd half could easily be won. UT did the exact same thing to us the previous year, where we owned the 1st half, gave up a late TD and managed to get routed. Instead of mounting that big drive, we laid a couple more eggs and it was as deflated a feeling as I can remember. It probably wasn’t as stunning an opener to a UGA game as the WVU Sugar Bowl mess from 2005 where our SEC Champion unit got taken out back early for a 28-0 lead, but unlike that game we never really mounted anything resembling a comeback and in the end, that was probably the most painful aspect of the whole day.

VU Offense

Vandy presents a balanced offense with a mobile, dangerous QB and quite possibly the SEC’s most dangerous WR. They moved the ball well on us last year and are a more experienced unit now. Given the way our D played last week, they’ve got a lot to prove to not just to the fans and staff, but to themselves.

At QB, Jr. Chris Nickson is experiencing a weird season. He’s thrown 6 TDs and 5 INTs on the year, but in his 3 SEC games he’s thrown 0 TDs and only 1 INT. He threw 4 INTs against Eastern Michigan. He’s a threat to run the ball although against Bama and AU he was completely shut down with 6 carries for -12 yards. On the year, he’s completing just over 50% of his passes and struggling enough to get benched some during the AU game last week. His backup is very similar in his skillset to Nickson as a mobile QB, but he was equally ineffective. It’s not certain at this point which guy will be starting.

Sr. RB Cassen Jackson-Garrison is on pace for a solid year. At 6-1, 215, he’s not small. He’s only averaging 4.0 ypc on the season with only 2 receptions. He’s found the endzone at a better clip this year though, with 4 TDs through 5 games, almost eclipsing his 2006 total of 6 already.

The Vandy WR corps is essentially Earl Bennett…and some other guys. If you’re going to build your WR corps around one guy though, Bennett is the one. He’s only a Junior but has already had a remarkable career and is on pace to shatter every SEC receiving record, no small feat considering the offenses and WRs this conference has seen through the years. He exploded on the SEC 2 years ago with 79 catches for 876 yards and 9 TDs. He followed that up with 82 catches for 1,146 yards and 6 TDs. For this season he’s already got 41 grabs for right at 500 yards, but the bulk of those yards came in the opener against Richmond where he snagged 13 balls for 223 yards. He’s not the fastest WR on the planet and he’s of average size, but he just has a knack for finding a hole in the zone and making every catch. Against Bama and AU this year combined he only had 8 catches for 83 yards though. Against us last year he managed 8 catches for 89 yards and a TD. The rest of the group hasn’t done much, with Sean Walker and George Smith each averaging right at 2 catches per game. Outside of those 3, no one else has more than 4 receptions on the season. Bennett has more receiving TDs than the rest of the team combined.

Think of the Vandy OL as the anti-UGA OL. Vandy starts 5 seniors (4 redshirt seniors) along the front line, with all 5 being returning starters. You rarely see that. They have a combined total of 126 career starts amongst the group. The starters are similarly sized to UT’s line that just ran all over us. Both OTs (Chris Williams and Brian Stamper) were preseason all-SEC selections. This is a good, veteran OL. You won’t see many more seasoned units.

Bottom Line: After that massacre on Rocky Top, the Dawgs will be looking to show that they actually do know how to play defense. This will be a game where their pride will be tested as a defense. Normally you might think that playing a traditional conference doormat like Vandy would present some motivational issues. I would hope that would be anything but the case this week as that doormat currently holds a winning streak against you and you just got shelled by your traditional rival. We need to see effort this week. We need to see fire. We need to see that old “play with your hair on fire” type intensity that has seemed to be missing all season. Their seasoned OL worries me tremendously, especially after last week and really the week before, where Ole Miss worked the ground game on us through the better part of 3 quarters.