Is Failure a Better Teacher than Success?

Dogs don't finish the drill. Lose 51-33.

In a strange kinda way, I feel a little bit better about UGA's loss to Tennessee than I do about their wins against Colorado and Ole Miss. I think the Georgia team we say last Saturday, especially in the first half, was a well-rounded and competitive team. We showed that we could play with anyone and win. Unfortunately, things started to turn just before the end of the half and went into a downward spiral from there.

The GOOD:
The Offense looked much better and actualy rediscovered the advantages of the forward pass. Seven different players caught passes. Joe T looked pretty sharp in the first half, posting better numbers than Ainge.
Thomas Brown finally looked like the RB we expected this year averaging 7.1 yards a carry while splitting time with Kregg Lumpkin who rushed for 78 yards and averaged 6 yards a carry.
Mikey Henderson proved again what a weapon he is as a punt returner, taking one to the house on an 86 yard return.
Thomas Brown bested him with a 99 yard kickoff return for a TD.

The BAD:
The Defense, which had led UGA to a 5-0 record this year, broke down in a major way. Ainge was basically untouched and unhindered, thus he was able to carve up the defense for 268 yards & 2 TDs and complete about 66% of his passes. The Defense also yielded 129 yards and 3 TDs on the ground. Even worse, they allowed Tennessee to convert a 3rd and 13 from their 5 yard line, keeping the drive alive, forfeiting potentially good field position and eventually giving up points. For a team that had given up 34 points in the previous 5 games, it was a huge disappointment to see them yield 51 to Tennessee- no matter how good they might be.
The Coaching, specifically the defensive coaching, was poor and uncreative. Ainge said that Georgia did exactly what they expected them to do and the Vols' gameplan worked great against a defense that didn't get pressure on the QB and didn't make the necessary changes to address that.
The Special Teams added to their growing woes with bad retuns- aside from Brown's long TD return, he and the other return men averaged 8 yards on kickoff returns which is flat horrible. Not only did the Dogs perform poorly in the return game, but we did horrible in the kicking game too- kickoffs that went out of bounds, short kickoffs and a 40 yard return all contributed to a major problem all night: great field postion for the night. Tennessee did not have a TD drive longer than 65 yards and had 3 that were less than 45 yards.

The UGLY:
Turnovers contributed to said field postion woes. The Dogs threw 3 INTs and had a fumble- all of which were cashed in for TDs on short fields.
Another blocked punt also led to a quick 7 points for the Vols.

The sad thing is that we had the Vols down for the count, leading 24-7. The Dogs were executing in all phases of the game. But Tennessee adjusted their gameplan and moved the ball, we didn't adjust and watched them peel the victory from our grip. It certainly was a game of 2 different halves. But I know from watching the first half that the potential to win more games is there, it's just a matter of finishing the drill.