Watch: Josh Heupel’s press conference after No. 21 Tennessee’s 38-10 loss to No. 1 Georgia

What head coach Josh Heupel said after No. 21 Tennessee lost to No. 1 Georgia on Saturday at Neyland Stadium:

Opening Statement

“A lot of good ball played by the orange in that stadium for a while (and) tonight that was certainly not it. Give Georgia a ton of credit. They’re a really good football team and have been for a while. Just at the end of the day, early in the football game, third downs were a huge part of it. They were able to convert. We weren’t able to convert on any of our third-down situations. After the initial run by us, we had a little bit of efficiency, but couldn’t sustain drives. When I say efficiency, in the run game. But weren’t able to sustain anything. They were able to make plays, stay on the field, convert third downs and score points. I like that we were able to get something out of the two-minute drive at the end of the half. But defense starts fast in third quarter, offense can’t put anything together, just disappointing offensively.

“Third downs, 2 of 11, you’re not gonna win. You get their conversion rate (9 of 13), that’s how you win. So (it’s) disappointing.We gotta regroup. We’re banged up. You guys saw that before the game, during the game. This game doesn’t care about it. We gotta come ready to play next Saturday.”

What Georgia was doing to convert so much on third down

“A lot of it was in the pass game. At the end of the day, I said going into it, there’s gonna be one-on-one situations. They made plays in those one-on-one situations. And that can be protection, that can be giving the quarterback time. It can be making the plays out on the perimeter. And end of the day, we didn’t do those things, you know what I mean? Those plays … give you the ability (to convert).”

Tennessee having to play a walk-on on defense and what it says about how far this program has to go building the roster

“We still gotta continue to take steps. That’s in what we’re doing as a program, it’s our personnel, the depth of our program, all those things, to continue to climb the ranks inside of this league. That’s a really good football team. You know what I mean? What they’ve done over the last couple of years is special. But we got a ways to go.”

Tennessee struggling to stop teams from going on runs in the four losses this season

“I don’t think there is just one common thread. I thought in this one our guys continued to compete. I’m gonna speak from the offensive side of it, being able to sustain and make the competitive play in this one. You know what I mean? Because I felt like this is different than early in the year when we were at Florida. At the end of the day, as a program, you gotta find a way to get it on Saturday afternoon and that’s everybody, from me to the assistants, everybody that suits up and goes out there.

If Tennessee’s offensive struggles was more due to Georgia’s defense or the Vols failing to execute

“A little bit different structure (from Georgia’s defense) not every down. Anticipate some of it, their personnel and us managing and being efficient in what we’re doing. And then the third downs, a lot of that was man-to-man, being able to protect it, being able to get it off, being able to go win in a one-on-one situation. We do some things to try to give them some space to create some for them to win. And they gotta be good enough to go make plays.”

How a program like Tennessee can close the gap with elite teams in the SEC, if it’s through stacking recruiting classes or using the NCAA Transfer Portal

“I think it’s a combination of all of those things. We started obviously year one, we were way down on a number of scholarships. We’ve gotten closer to 85. We’re trying to develop some young guys from within. I think that’s important. (Georgia has) done that. They’ve added through the portal, too, but a lot of it’s been kids inside of the program. So we gotta continue to develop and recruit.”

The post Watch: Josh Heupel’s press conference after No. 21 Tennessee’s 38-10 loss to No. 1 Georgia appeared first on On3.