Jeremy Pruitt discusses Florida being ‘too good to let them off the hook’

Florida defeated Tennessee, 31-19.

Tennessee (2-6, 2-6 SEC) suffered its sixth consecutive loss Saturday to No. 6 Florida (8-1, 8-1 SEC), 31-19.

Following the game, third-year Tennessee head coach Jeremy Pruitt discussed the Vols’ performance against Florida.

“This team was too good for us to let them off the hook, and we let them off the hook from a defensive standpoint about four or five times on third down in the first half,” Pruitt said of Florida.

Dec 5, 2020; Knoxville, Tennessee, USA; Florida Gators quarterback Kyle Trask (11) warms up before the game against the Tennessee Volunteers at Neyland Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports

The Gators were led by redshirt senior quarterback Kyle Trask.

Trask was 35-of-49 for 433 passing yards and four touchdowns against Tennessee.

“Florida has a really good football team, they have a couple of exceptional players and I thought they played very well today,” Pruitt said. “I thought our kids fought hard when you look at the circumstances that a lot of these guys were around.

“We made a ton of mistakes today, but the mistakes we made were probably some where we needed to do a much better job getting guys ready to play and some were guys hadn’t practiced in two weeks.”

Dec 5, 2020; Knoxville, Tennessee, USA; Tennessee Volunteers head coach Jeremy Pruitt walks down the sideline during the first half against the Florida Gators at Neyland Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports

Pruitt detailed how his defense did not make plays against Florida’s offense.

“When you’re playing inside man-to-man, you shouldn’t get beat inside,” Pruitt said. “That happened to us a couple times. I thought our kids fought really hard, but I think this game was very similar to a lot of our games this year.

“If you look at the way we play about 90 percent of the plays are maybe top tier in this league, but unfortunately you have to count all plays. There have been three or four plays on each side of the ball in every game, particularly this one, where we’ve made mistakes and either didn’t take advantage or didn’t capitalize on the situation we were in.”

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