The little things get you beat in football – especially when you’re lacking talent and depth in the beginning of rebuild. Dropped passes, overthrows, penalties and missed tackles were aplenty Saturday night at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.

We knew Florida was going to run the football – it’s a top-five rushing team in the country. The Gators did so with 283 yards on the night, behind 144 yards from Emory Jones. But it was maneuvering down the field with ease that was disappointing in the second half.

Jones looked to be a solid SEC quarterback tonight. But Tennessee’s defense allowed the league’s interception leader to go 21-of-27 through the air for 209 yards and two touchdowns. According to the telecast, Jones became only the second Florida quarterback to throw for two touchdowns and run for over 140 yards in a game.

The first? Tim Tebow.

Florida scored touchdowns on drives of 80, 59, 78, 70 and 80 yards – drives that spanned a combined 41 plays. The Gators averaged 7.4 yards a play and were 5-of-5 in the redzone – all touchdowns. Florida was 9-of-14 on third downs and picked up 25 first downs on the night.

When Tennessee needed stops defensively in the second half, Florida scored three times on four opportunities. When the Vols needed a spark offensively to mount the comeback, it was a dropped Hendon Hooker pass on fourth down by Jimmy Calloway or penalties that set the offense behind the sticks.

There were some questionable coaching decisions, too, and one that was addressed in postgame.

“We wanted to stay in tempo and that was a choice by me,” Josh Heupel said afterwards on not calling a timeout on final possession of the first half. “They got the ball spotted a little bit sooner than I anticipated. Felt like we had a chance to hit a shot down the seam on them and catch those guys out of position.

“We chose to take the field goal at that point.”

Otherwise, it was another solid play-calling day for Heupel – in this writer’s opinion.

And then came the injuries. Cooper Mays absolutely gave it his all tonight, though it was clear he stayed in a few plays too long. Hooker took a shot to the head late in the ballgame on an attempted flea-flicker. LaTrell Bumphus went down a few times and Elijah Simmons limped off late in the game. Jabari Small was also shaken up in the contest.

Simply put: It was a night that began with a lot of promise, but one that ended in the same ole fashion. Disappointment.

I was so ready to plug in the infamous ‘closing the gap’ quote Jeremy Pruitt bestowed upon us in postgame following the Alabama loss in 2020. I even contemplated finding the quote at halftime. It looked as if the Vols were going to hang around in this one. They didn’t, but how far off are they?

I don’t know. Obviously, there were a lot of great things to take from this ballgame. I thought Hooker played well in the first half. The highlight of the night was the deep ball to JaVonta Payton where the safety bit on the fake.

I thought Tiyon Evans ran extremely hard. His 47-yard touchdown on the screen play was fun too – credit Darnell Wright’s hustle as well. There was a textbook strip by Altonae Taylor in the second quarter that couldn’t be coached any better. Tennessee compiled more than Alabama on the ground and racked up 423 yards of total offense.

But in the end, it was depth and self-inflicting wounds that did this team in. Again.

Tennessee is just not good enough right now to overcome those types of mishaps. The Vols don’t have the automatic passing game that can generate something in a hurry. UT doesn’t have a consistent road-grader that can give you 4-5 yards a pop on command behind a trusted offensive line. Tennessee doesn’t have a defense that’s capable of getting the football back in a hurry against a superior team.

The Vols don’t have any of that – consistently -- not yet at least.

You do see the foundation being laid, however. You do see that with some quality depth, players won’t make as many lazy penalties. The play-calling is there. The schemes are there. Unfortunately, it just takes some time. And I know you're out of patience.

The goals for Tennessee moving forward remain pretty much the same. Clean up your mistakes. Take advantage of what the game is giving you. Find a way to consistently hit on the explosive plays. Tackle better. So on and so forth….

But one goal that should be atop the list moving forward – play four quarters of football against quality SEC opponents. It’s something we didn’t see with the prior regime and something we didn’t see tonight in Heupel’s first opportunity.

Tennessee is talented enough to win some games in conference this year. Next week is a winnable game. Will the Vols learn from the mistakes tonight, figure out some things that have held them back in four games, and put forth a solid showing against Alabama or Georgia later this season?

Time will tell. But as we saw tonight, this team is capable of doing all that. It just needs to sustain it for four quarters.

“We won’t fall apart, I’ll start off with that,” Taylor said postgame. “We are going to get closer as a team and go back and watch the film. We are going to continue to build that bond and come next week, we will handle that when that comes. But one thing I will say is, we will not fall apart this year. You can quote me on that.”