He wants that one back.
After giving up a 14-3 lead to Arkansas on Saturday, Tennessee was left with about a minute to go answer and win the game. Down 19-14, the Volunteers had no time to waste. And following a huge 42 yard throw to Dont’e Thornton, Tennessee appeared to be in business.
Until they weren’t.
Thornton made the catch with 38 seconds left on the clock, and the clock stopped with 35 seconds to go. Tennessee frantically ran down the field to get the next play off, choosing not to use one of their two timeouts. Nearly 20 seconds ran off the clock, putting Nico Iamaleava and the offense in a completely unnecessary bind.
With those two timeouts left and 17 seconds to play, Tennessee would only get four more plays off from the 25 yard line. We all know how that ended. Tennessee went incomplete pass—Sampson run for five—incomplete and then Iamaleava ran out of bounds on the final play of the game.
“In hindsight, yep, for sure,” Heupel said when asked if he should have taken a timeout after Thornton’s catch. “As I recognized that we weren’t immediately ready, thought about going to a timeout, then I thought we were ready to get the ball off in the next couple seconds.
“Every timeout at the end of the game creates a different scenario where you are not forced to push the ball into the end zone. So, yeah, absolutely.”
One timeout and 35 seconds from the 25 yard line feels much, much different than two timeouts with 21 seconds. Tennessee actually did make it all the way down the field to get set, thanks to a sideline warning on Arkansas. As ESPN showed the replay however, it took 15 seconds to get the play call in. Tennessee’s next snap came with 21 seconds on the clock.
That created chaos. An overthrow by Nico, a fumbled snap that fortunately landed in Sampson’s hands, a throw behind Chas Nimrod — and then the infamous final play.
“As you can imagine, Nico is pretty torn up,” Tennessee tight end Miles Kitselman said on Monday. “You know, trying to put a lot of blame on himself. I put a lot of blame on myself as well there at the end of the game. The biggest thing is keeping each other up, being positive, trying to learn from the mistakes that we had.
“Nico coming in today and spending a lot of time in the film room, a lot of time in the treatment room trying to get back and stay healthy. Just trying to take that next step in being a leader.”
It’s an obvious learning moment for Iamaleava, who was put in that situation for the first time. However, to me, this one falls on the head coach. The clock management just wasn’t good enough, even going back to the previous offensive drive where Tennessee went into hurry up and ended up going three and out. No time was run off the clock, and Arkansas was set up with a chance to go win it. That’s exactly what they did.
Tennessee will try to bounce back at home this weekend against Florida.