Monday musings...

I didn't watch one second of the Vols' game with Mississippi St. live. I was hoping to catch the second half, but the establishment where I was located at the time was sans GamePlan. The house where I was staying could not get ESPN360. I was out of luck. I breezed through the Vol Network replay last night on my TiVo.

There's not too much to say about this game. On the surface, it seemed like a fairly lackluster win over a pesky Bulldog squad. The Vols weren't at their best, but they weren't at their worst either. They made the plays to win, which is what matters in the end.

However, without looking at the stats, I know that the Vols must have piled up a bunch of yardage, because they hit two short field goals, one medium one, and one long one, while missing a short one. Those kicks, combined with the three touchdowns and no turnovers received from State, tells me that we moved the ball. This is a good thing, but we've gotta finish the drives better. I know we didn't punt much either, which means that our offense was getting it done. Austin's drop in the end zone kept this game from seeming more like the blowout that it could have been.

I was actually in Iowa attending the Hawkeyes' game with a hot Illinois team, who was coming off consecutive victories over ranked conference foes. The Zooker reverted to his formerly incompetent self, twice accepting penalties after his defense had stopped a 3rd down play. On both occasions, Iowa converted on the longer 3rd down plays, once for the only touchdown in the game. If Iowa was forced to kick what would have been a tying FG in the 3rd quarter, Illinois likely escapes with a victory.

It was not really an exciting defensive struggle, as one might expect. Both fanbases didn't really seem too much into the game until the 4th quarter, and the noise was marginal at best, which is the opposite of my previous Iowa experiences.

A good time was had, though. I'm glad the good guys won.

Could Chris Brown have been any more wide open on his TD?

I'm not really happy about Kentucky winning over LSU. A confident Kentucky is not good for the Vols, no matter what the game might mean on November 24th. What it will definitely mean, no matter what, is Kentucky's best chance to beat the Big Orange in my entire consciousness of Tennessee football.

I've got this theory that the Vols' offense is better in the daylight than at nighttime. I'm glad the Bama game is at 12:30. I'm not looking forward to the inevitable night game against Carolina. (UGA-UF will be the CBS game.) I like the sunshine. Call me crazy, but I think the later game time gives our guys more hours in the day in which to become nervous and tight. Same goes for the fanbase. Sounds stupid, and there's no way to prove it. Just a hunch.

I just can't get off this. When was the last time we played really well (or scored a big victory over a quality opponent) in a night game at home? I'm scanning my brain, and the last one I can come up with is Florida 2004. Before that, probably South Carolina in 2001. My point is, we will need to play really well in order to handle the Cocks and Spurrier in a couple of weeks.

For illustrative purposes, when exactly have we laid eggs at home at night? And I'm not even going to mention extremely lackluster victories here, but in the same timeframe: Bama 2002, UGA 2003, Auburn 2004, Carolina 2005. Florida 2006 is arguable.

Here's hoping we can break through on October 27th.

That's all for now.