ATHENS – Tennessee’s eight-game winning streak came to an end Saturday at Georgia.
The Vols were defeated by Georgia, 44-21.
Following the game, third-year Tennessee head coach Jeremy Pruitt gave credit to Georgia.
“First of all, I would just like to give credit to Georgia,” Pruitt said following the game. “I thought they really outplayed us there in the second half.”
The Vols held a 21-17 lead at halftime and did not score in the final two quarters.
Tennessee totaled three turnovers in the contest.
“When you look at the game, of course you learn a lot when you look at the tape, but you can’t turn the ball over three times against anybody and expect to win,” Pruitt said. “We turned the ball over three times in the second half, once for a defensive score and twice, I don’t think they got any first downs and kicked field goals. So, there’s 13 points there that really changed the game.
“We made a lot of mistakes on the defensive side, especially on third down. That’s on me. That’s not on anyone else, that’s on me. I learned a long time ago that you have to be able to do what your players can do. If they can’t do it, then you got to do a better job of coaching them up, and I have to do a better job of that. Offensively, we created a couple of explosive plays in the first half, but in the second half we didn’t control the line of scrimmage, played behind the sticks and we have to be more explosive, got to be able to run the ball. We also didn’t really create any plays in the special teams.”