'Man, you gotta move on': Vols focusing on consistency to bounce back from Alabama loss
A week ago, Tennessee was 30 minutes away from its first road win over Alabama since 2003. The Vols led 20-7 at halftime at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, before a disastrous second half and 27 unanswered points handed the Crimson Tide a 34-20 win.
The question for the Vols moving forward is how they will respond to the letdown.
“The lesson has always got to move forward with you,” Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said this week. As a program, as players, as coaches, you’ve gotta continue to improve and put yourself and your teams — and I say that, players and coaches — in the best situation.”
The next opportunity to do just that is Saturday night, when No. 21 Tennessee (5-2, 2-2 SEC) goes to Kentucky (5-2, 2-2) for the 7 p.m. Eastern Time start (TV: ESPN) at Kroger Field in Lexington.
“Good teams continue to get better throughout the course of the season,” Heupel said. “That’s situational awareness. It’s, as you form the identity of your football team, fundamentals, it’s technique, it’s all of those things. I just think for us as a staff, I think consistency is really important.
“And not that you don’t subtly tweak what your message is from week to week, but you know, the things that you say matter when you’re winning. And they are the same types of things if it doesn’t go your way on the course of Saturday.”
Bounce Back: Josh Heupel is 11-2 as a head coach coming off a loss
The numbers favor Heupel coming off a loss.
He’s lost back-to-back games only once as Tennessee’s coach, losing to Ole Miss and Alabama in consecutive weeks during the 2021 season.
As a head coach he’s 11-2 following a loss, with a 6-1 record in such games at Tennessee. The last five times the Vols have lost under Heupel, they’ve bounced back with a win, including the 45-42 win at Kentucky two years ago.
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Heupel said his teams having bounce-back ability comes from consistent messaging — win or lose.
“When we leave that team meeting,” Heupel said, “we talk about leaving it behind us and moving on to the next one. You’re only as good as your next performance in this game. Your family, the media, everybody’s gonna talk about the last one, that’s their job. And your fans too.
“But as a competitor, man, you gotta move on. And it’s about the next one. So I think the fact that our message is fairly similar, no matter what the previous result is, it helps our players buy into pushing forward and continuing to grow.”
Vols at Kentucky: Saturday, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN
A sign of growth this season would be road wins. Tennessee has lost four of its last five road games, with the only exception being the 56-0 win at Vanderbilt in November.
The Vols have two road games over the next three weeks, going to Kentucky Saturday and to No. 16 Missouri on November 11, sandwiched around the Homecoming date with UConn on November 4.
That leads into No. 1 Georgia coming to Neyland Stadium on November 18.
“There’s a lot of football left in this season for us also as a team and we only get so many opportunities,” Heupel said. “(Kentucky) is our next one. This is a really good football team. They certainly have our attention.”
