Strange: Vols need runners to run gauntlet

In baseball, as the pitch count mounts the arm tires, raising the likelihood of a mistake in late innings. Mistakes get hit out of the park.

For Tennessee football, 45 is a magic number. When a quarterback attempts 45 passes in a game, it's one of two things:

Either the Vols are struggling or they're padding stats for a Heisman Trophy candidate.

It's usually the former.

Before Saturday, Tennessee was 3-8-1 all-time when a quarterback attempts 45 or more passes in a game.

All three of those victories were with Peyton Manning flinging the football. One was at Arkansas his sophomore year. The other two came in his senior year against UCLA and Southern Miss, with the apparent intent of boosting his ill-fated Heisman campaign.

The other entries in the 45-and-up club didn't come with a smiley face:

Manning in two Florida losses; Andy Kelly in a Florida loss and a Notre Dame loss; Casey Clausen in a Peach Bowl loss to Clemson; A.J. Suggs in an overtime loss at LSU. There's a couple more, but you get the picture.

To sum up, no one in the club other than Manning had ever walked off the field a winner.

Ainge's meter hit 44 attempts Saturday night when the Vols, trailing 13-9, arrived at second-and-goal on the Alabama 6 with about 4 minutes to play.

"We're not into numbers or who does what,'' head coach Phillip Fulmer said Sunday night. "We're just trying to win the football game.''

Good thing. Offensive coordinator David Cutcliffe called pass No. 45. Ainge rolled left, reviewed his options and fired a strike to Bret Smith at the goal line.

After a review, officials ruled Smith made the catch a foot short of the end zone.

Arian Foster scored a touchdown on the next play and UT won 16-9.

Ainge threw one more pass, a less significant one, to finish at 46.

Now Tennessee has two winners in the 45-and-up club.

Good for Ainge, but the Vols don't want to push their luck.

If you're throwing the football 45 times a game, it's because you're way behind on the scoreboard or because the running game isn't getting the job done.

Against Alabama, Tennessee never trailed by more than seven points. So please call the running game to the witness stand.

Let the record show the Vols tried 21 runs for a net 57 yards, an underwhelming average of 2.7 yards per attempt.

While Tennessee's offense has been resurgent in 2006, the running game has been hit-and-miss.

The hits were California and LaMarcus Coker's eye-popping fourth quarter against Marshall.

The Vols averaged a decent 3.9 yards against a bad Memphis team and a so-so 3.4 against Georgia.

Air Force (2.5-yard average) was a miss. Florida was a catastrophe: minus-11 yards, a minus 0.5-yard average.

After Alabama, UT ranks 81st in the nation in rushing offense at 119.57 yards per game. That places the Vols 10th in the SEC, ahead of only Mississippi State and Kentucky.

Not a comforting position to be in for Tennessee heading into a gauntlet of South Carolina, LSU and Arkansas.

LSU leads the nation in total defense. South Carolina and Arkansas are top 35.

"All of us would like to have been more balanced in the ball game,'' Fulmer said of Alabama.

"But we felt if it (Alabama) was going to commit that much to stopping the run and play that much man-to-man (pass coverage), we had the skill level to beat them.

"We're definitely going to look at ways to run the ball more consistently than we have.''

None of them will include Coker. UT's most explosive back is out for a minimum of three weeks after suffering a knee injury Saturday night.

Thus the Vols head into the gauntlet with offensive issues.

The good news?

The Vols are blessed with skill players throwing and catching the ball.

The bad news? That's not enough to run the gauntlet.