Players own up to loss

Shortly after Tennessee's 59-20 loss to No. 3 Florida on Saturday, center Josh McNeil offered a succinct assessment of where the Vols were.

"We're 1-2 with a lot of work to do," McNeil said.

Two days later, McNeil's words are hard to beat for both brevity and accuracy.

Tennessee, unranked in either the Associated Press or the USA Today Coaches' polls for the first time since the end of the 2005 season, has plenty of fixes to make before - and during - Saturday's 7 p.m. game against Arkansas State (TV: Pay-per-view).

The biggest fix, though, will be putting Saturday's loss in the past.

That's not an easy thing to do, considering that the Gators handed UT its biggest margin of defeat in Phillip Fulmer's tenure as head coach.

"It's tough right now to know you gave up so many points and you lost by so many points to a team that you know is not that much better than you," senior tight end Chris Brown said. "It's a tough loss that we don't want to just swallow and don't just want to forget, but we have to move on. We can't sit here and dwell on the past and dwell on the Florida loss for the rest of the season because you'll go into a landslide, and you can't do that playing SEC football."

For senior linebacker Ryan Karl, a Franklin native, the loss is doubly tough because of his Tennessee roots.

"I don't like being a part of a team that's losing like this, especially being a big Tennessee fan," said Karl. "It's hard for me personally. I'm also a fan; I'm not just a player. It's just one of those things that we've got to turn around and get back on the right track. I think we've got great talent, great team. We've got to execute."

Execution, not lack of talent or UT's gameplan, is what cost the Vols, Karl said. And it's what had him feeling so down Sunday and into Monday.

"We feel bad because we didn't execute it," Karl said. "When you get the so-called worst loss in Fulmer's era and I was also part of the 5-6 team, it's not something I like to be a part of. I've got to go tell all my family when I get older that I was part of this team. It's not something I want to be a part of. It's something we got to work on to turn it around and get in the right spot."

Karl and his teammates felt like they were in the right spots Saturday. Their beef isn't with the schemes of offensive coordinator David Cutcliffe or defensive coordinator John Chavis. The players' assessment is that they didn't make plays.

On defense, the lack of execution was readily apparent on third and fourth downs, where the Gators converted seven of their 14 tries. On offense, the lack of execution showed most in the run game, where UT had just 37 yards rushing and was plagued by poor execution on the offensive line.

UT coach Phillip Fulmer said Monday that there's no reason for panic.

"There's no panic," he said. "The players are going to hear all kinds of things all over the place, but the fact is there's a bunch of coaches here that are really fine coaches and have done it for a long time. This is a tough time. Tough times don't last, but tough people do. We've been here before and fought through it, and we're going to fight through it again. I thought our team was extremely responsive to that."

Senior defensive end Xavier Mitchell says the most important thing for the Vols is how they respond after starting 1-2 for just the second time under Fulmer.

In 1994, the Vols started 1-3 with losses to No. 13 UCLA, No. 1 Florida and unranked Mississippi State.

"It's how you react to this situation. That's our focus right now," Mitchell said. "We're not going to stay down. That's the biggest thing we know about ourselves: We've been knocked down, but we'll never stay down."

Drew Edwards covers University of Tennessee football. He may be reached at 865-342-6274.

© 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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