Tennessee: 31, Cal: 45

We lost. We could have won. But it could have been worse. Erik Ainge looked extremely competent, if not a little gimpy when throwing over fifteen yards. Arian Foster, at times, looked big and fast like the Lawrence Phillips of old Nebraska, but he seemed to run out of steam too quickly and too often, on two separate occasions when it seemed like he could have scored—something Cal never looked…slow, that is. Our receivers, mostly freshman and sophomores, were invisible and skittish; one play in particular in which a receiver pussy-footed his way across the middle (a no-no), thus missing probably one of the hardest and most accurate passes from Ainge all night, which he didn’t even see, was a prime example. Our line, with exception of that opening drive, kept Ainge off the turf. Our punter looked terrible, but Vol fans understand that it usually takes a Colquitt until his senior year to be any good. Whoever we have doing the kick-offs might as well boot it out-of-bounds every time because he clearly can’t kick it pass the thirty-yard line, as Cal seemed to start at least on the forty every series; adopting this strategy would guarantee that our opponents start no further than the thirty-five yard line. In order to keep our (suddenly) thin defense rested, our offense is going to have to score often and slowly, especially if they’re going to stick to this no-huddle business. By the end of the game, it was clear that they (the defense) could hardly muster the strength to tackle Justin Forsett (93 yards in the fourth quarter). The good news being that our defense proudly maintained its tradition of being one of the worst tackling teams in the NCAA, a longstanding Tennessee fault that I have stopped believing will ever change as long as John Chavis coaches defense. Seriously, watching our players make the (admittedly) talented Desean Jackson look like Reggie Bush was embarrassing. The loss of Xavier Mitchell is catastrophic. If we lose Jonathan Hefney to injury, we might as well offer opposing offenses 6-points and devote our time to becoming extra-point blocking machines since it is clear that Hefney and Mitchell (along with Jerod Mayo) are the only guys who can tackle. Freshman star recruit, Eric Berry, looked like a beast when he nailed Cal track phenom Jahvid Best, and he seemed to be the only player in the secondary who could keep step with Desean Jackson--here’s hoping he continues to get better and not arrested. Next week Southern Mississippi, followed by Florida. Not to be a homer, but we could win both of those games, but we could also lose them, which, I imagine, goes without saying.