Oct. 19, 2013

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Head Coach Steve Spurrier

Opening Statement
First of all, give Tennessee credit. I think they out played us, although we were within a play or two of winning but we didn’t do it. They hit a couple of deep balls which happens to us occasionally, and we didn’t play well offensively at all. Tennessee had a good plan. Their defense played very well. They won the game. A play or two here or there. We had a lot of careless penalties today and in a close game they come back to haunt you and that’s the way it turned out. We had a lot of good play by a lot of guys. It seems like we always get a penalty on kickoff return or punt return. Our guys can’t play by the rules. Maybe field position was extremely important in a close game like today. Other than that, they beat us. They beat us today.

On Connor Shaw’s injury
The trainer called it a sprained knee. I think he sort of got tackled on it and it collapsed under him a little bit he said. How serious it is, we’ll have to wait an evaluate, but they’re calling it a sprained knee right now.

On the strong third quarter
We had a good drive there in the third quarter and we scored on two out of our first three possessions. Obviously you always go back and wish you’d ran here or thrown there. We only attempted 22 passes, but we dang sure called a lot more than 22, I don’t know if the pressure got to Connor or what. He made some good run outs, I’ll say that and then other times it was like we had some guys open but he got some pressure I guess. We ran a lot. We had some good runs here and there and then we had some nothing runs, so we didn’t have a lot of consistent four, five, six yard runs, especially late in the game where a first down or two would have done it.

On calling the two timeouts on fourth down
We were thinking about going for it. We went up there and if it looked good we were thinking about going for it and then the second time they actually changed their defense a little bit. We thought we had a little bit of a hole there and we had a different play called. Looking back I always tell myself to go for those, but you look stupid if you leave them on the 30 yard line, and our defense was playing well. It went to third and 10 there and they threw up a jump ball on us and their kid made a heck of a catch, one hand, our guy was grabbing his arm I guess and he made a heck of a catch and then they ran it on down in there to the one and kicked a field goal.

On how much confidence he has in his defense
Maybe that’s why we went ahead and punted there on fourth and two. In hindsight we should have gone for it, but we had them at third and ten there and that was a big play obviously, but again we had a lot of other chances. Offense didn’t play very well. Special teams continues to push in the back or get holding penalties on kick returns, which it’s sad that we can’t teach them to play by the rules, but we can’t do it. That may be one of the big reasons we got beat today.

On if the two timeouts would have helped at the end
We might have stopped them and forced an early field goal attempt, but who knows.

On how much it hurt to lose Kadetrix Marcus early in the game
I don’t know what to say. He hit him with the crown of his head while he was tackling him and if that’s the rule then he’s out. We wish he could have been there and he really didn’t do anything vicious but that is the rule. He tackled him helmet to helmet and they decided to go ahead and call that one. Sometimes they don’t call them, sometimes they do.

On Mike Davis
Mike did okay. He wen the wrong way a couple of times, but not bad. He played pretty well. He had a couple of big runs, but we dropped the snap from center right there in the first quarter on first down. Mike had 140, and I wish we could have had about 10 there at the end but we couldn’t do it.

On the difference on offense between last week and this week
Maybe we had too much press. We thought we were too good, maybe. I don’t know. I thought Tennessee played strong up front. I thought their d-line played well and their linebackers. We did pop a few, and of course Connor had that one long run, but we didn’t have many passing yards, that’s for sure.

On Rajion Neal’s incomplete pass
They said they threw it forward. I’ve never seen that happen but I guess it could happen because he did sort of fling it, but we came out of the pile with two of those fumbles that we didn’t get, and usually the guy who comes out of the pile gets it, but I guess whoever falls on it first gets it now.

On Florida and Georgia losing today too
Georgia got beat by Vandy? Oh. Well, I guess all we’ve got to do is beat Missouri. We’ve got some work to do though, but give Tennessee credit. They played well, they out-played us and they out-coached us.

On if the fumble on the exchange in the I-formation made him hesitant to go to it later in the game
Not really. We tried a little bit underneath, we tried what we did last week, but we didn’t go very far.