What Joe Milton III said after Tennessee's loss at Florida

GAINESVILLE — Everything Tennessee quarterback Joe Milton III said after the 11th-ranked Vols lost 29-16 to Florida Saturday night at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium:

What led to Tennessee’s pre-snap penalties 

“Just not being focused, just shooting ourself in the foot, man. That’s all it is.” 

How much the road environment contributed to those penalties

“Not as much, man. When you’re in environments like this as a team, you gotta come together as a collective and just gotta execute plays. We didn’t start off doing that as the beginning of the first half, so that led up to the score tonight.”

Throwing his first interception at Tennessee and what happened on the play

“It happened, man. It happened. I can’t go back and change what happened. You only can learn from it. It’s totally on me. I understand. 

Florida’s defensive line getting pressure on his and hitting him as he threw the interception

“That’s part of the game. That’s what happened.”

What was said by Tennessee’s leaders in the locker room after the game

“It’s just all about if we’re gonna come together or we’re gonna separate. These games right here lead you to the most important things in life. You look at the game and you be like, oh man, we lost to Florida, right? And you go back in the locker room Sunday and you watch the game and you just see all the mistakes you made as a team, personally and you want to just fix those and go execute the next week.”

What changed after Tennessee’s touchdown drive on the first possession

“Just gotta keep executing, man. As an offense, you just gotta keep going no matter what. When you can score that easily … you just can’t ride the wave. You gotta be able to execute and attack.”

What Tennessee talked about at halftime and adjustments the Vols tried to make in the second half

“Don’t shoot yourself in the foot. Just keep going man. As an offense, as a defense, as a special teams, you gotta go execute.”

How this Tennessee will respond moving forward 

“Only people who find that out is us. We’ll find out. We’ll find that out within the team. Starting tomorrow. Really starting tonight on a plane. But really tomorrow morning, we get in there, we watch (the film) and go back Monday. You go execute and get ready for the following week. Can’t go back and change anything that happened in this game right here.” 

This game being a homecoming for him

“It meant a lot. I had a lot of family here. But most importantly is just being able to go out here and execute with my brothers, man. We all preached all week just to get out there and execute. We fell short but at the same time, man, you just go out to go out there and execute no matter what.”

Official resetting the ball on Tennessee’s fourth down and allowing Florida to substitute

“I was pretty confused on what was going on. Just because the ball moved so much. I was just confused on what was going on. The ref blew the whistle, so in my head I’m thinking that he’s gonna reposition the ball, so it don’t be too much confusion on with the snap. But they let it roll. Everything else out of that was out of our hands. That’s pretty much (it). You gotta control the controllable at that point.”

If Tennessee feels most the mistakes made in the loss were self inflicted 

“Absolutely. It’s all self-inflicted wounds. Like I just said, you look at it like, oh, we lost in Florida. But you know, you go in there and you see all the (self-inflicted mistakes) we made, the self things that we did, that you did yourself that messed up the play or messed up the drive. Like those small things we can go change. But you gotta keep believing in yourself as a team. That’s my message to the team. Keep believing in yourself and go execute.”