'We will play better' is Fulmer's promise

Life is a journey. So is a football season. From opening day to bowl day, a team hopes to keep getting better.

Tennessee's opening day being a bust, the Vols came home to Neyland Stadium on Saturday anxious to move on down the road.

While a 35-3 victory over outmanned UAB on a sweltering afternoon wasn't an unqualified success, it at least fell into the general category of progress.

"I do think we made improvement on some areas that we really worked hard on,'' said UT coach Phillip Fulmer.

Moments later, though, Fulmer added an afterthought to set the mood for upcoming SEC battles with Florida and Auburn in the next two weeks:

"We can, we must, we will play better as we go along.''

That pretty well summed up Saturday's script.

The Vols (1-1) led the 30-point underdog Blazers only 14-0 at halftime, thanks to a pair of Jonathan Crompton touchdown passes to Gerald Jones.

Although UAB (0-3) got a 47-yard field goal from Swayze Waters to start the second half, it was all Tennessee from that point on.

As a crowd announced - and overstated - at 98,205, gradually dissipated to escape an unrelenting sun, the Vols poured on more heat.

Turning to the running game, Tennessee ground out three consecutive scoring drives to put the game away.

Montario Hardesty's 6-yard run made it 21-3 with 7:08 left in the third quarter.

Lennon Creer raced 45 yards for a 28-3 lead with 1:41 left in the period. Creer's 3-yard run with 10:50 to play closed the scoring.

The shift to the ground game was hardly serendipity. The marching orders came down the pipeline.

"Yeah,'' said Fulmer. "Our guys looked like they'd forgotten what an intimidating drive was supposed to look like.''

The timing was interesting, too.

Crompton had just thrown his second interception of the game, this one on the opening possession of the second half and two plays after taking a 9-yard sack.

And that, against a defense ranked 117th out of 118 in the nation.

Crompton finished 19 of 31 for 240 yards passing. That registered improvement from his numbers at UCLA, but improvement was to be expected considering the opponent.

Not all the incompletions were his fault. Sophomore tight end Luke Stocker had a nightmare day, dropping three passes.

"Luke is an outstanding tight end with outstanding hands,'' Fulmer said. "He had one of those days and I'm glad it was this week and not next.''

The strong second half propelled the Vols to 548 yards of total offense, of which 266 came on the ground.

After rushing for only 56 yards in the first half, they pounded out 210 in the second.

"Our offensive line got great push,'' said Creer. "We made up our minds we were going to run the football.''

When they didn't, Lucas Taylor was the favorite target, catching nine passes for 132 yards.

Most of UT's first-half offensive success was compressed into a five-minute window late in the first quarter.

A 28-yard screen pass to Taylor set up a 20-yard touchdown pass to Jones with 4:35 left in the quarter.

When the Vols got the ball back after a Blazer punt, another screen to Taylor went for 48 yards. That preceded a 14-yard TD pass to Jones in the same back corner of the same end zone.

"The first touchdown, I was the decoy,'' Jones said. "I was supposed to take the corner away for an underneath throw but the corner just let me go.

"The second one was just a great play call by Coach (Dave) Clawson (UT's offensive coordinator). He put me one-on-one with the corner.''

As for the Tennessee defense, there were several steps forward, offset by a few in the other direction.

The Vols held the Blazers to 275 yards of total offense. UAB's only two scoring threats were negated by interceptions.

Most encouraging from UT's perspective, the unit that wilted in the fourth quarter at UCLA, closed the deal this time.

UAB had three fourth-quarter possessions. Ellix Wilson and DeAngelo Willingham ended two of them with interceptions and Brent Vinson broke up a third-down pass on UAB's final try.

Adding Eric Berry's second-quarter interception at the goal line, that's seven interceptions in two games.

"Early last year we couldn't buy a turnover,'' said UT defensive coordinator John Chavis. "We're getting our hands on a lot of balls and we should have had more today.''

Saturday was the first time UT had held an opponent without a touchdown since a 6-3 loss at Alabama in 2005.

"Giving up three points, that's a good day's work,'' Chavis said.

"I don't like to bring up the negatives but we didn't tackle very well today.

"I don't mean to take anything away from UAB, but half of what they got today was off missed tackles.''

As the journey continues - and it turns uphill from here - mark down tackling as something to work on.

But it's better to work on it after a win than a loss.

"We had a bad taste in our mouth from UCLA,'' said defensive tackle Demonte Bolden.

"Even though it was UAB, we got that taste out of our mouth and got us a victory.''

© 2008, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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