Tennessee has begun preparation for UTSA but questions from its 29-16 loss to Florida last Saturday still linger.

The No. 24 Vols (2-1, 0-1 SEC) presented a number of glaring issues vs. the Gators, particularly up front on offense, which limited its run game for the first time in three weeks. Defensively, poor tackling allowed Florida to break big plays and build a three-score lead at halftime.

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Tennessee offensive coordinator Joey Halzle, defensive coordinator Tim Banks, running backs Jabari Small and Jaylen Wright and defensive back Gabe Jeudy-Lally met with the media on Tuesday to break down the performance.

Here are the key takeaways.

Tennessee's run game entered the Florida match up off of back-to-back 225-plus yard performances but was limited against the Gators.

Pre-snap penalties were a factor, forcing the offense to move away from the run as it began drives 15-20 yards behind the original line of scrimmage. The Vols mustered just 106 yards with Wright leading with 63 yards and Small accounting for 35 more.

WATCH ON VOLREPORT: Tennessee football coordinators Tim Banks and Joey Halzle meet with the media

"We hit some big plays in it. Jaylen Wright ran hard," Halzle said. "It was fun to watch those backs. They run hard. It's the same thing, you get behind the chains, all of the sudden those gains of four (yards) don't feel as good on first-and-20. They're really good on first-and-10, now you feel like you can feed more runs in there. Well, now you feel like you got to push the ball out on the perimeter and push it down the field a little bit to stay out of third-and-long.

"So, I think it's just the sum of all the parts...You get yourself backed up early in the drive, it's hard to get into a rhythm."

It was the third-straight game that Wright led all Tennessee rushers. He posted 115 yards vs. Virginia and 118 the following week against Austin Peay and averaged nearly 10 yards per carry in both of those outings but managed just 3.9 yards at Florida.

"I feel like as a group we were able to get what we could get," Wright said. "It's just a physical game. I feel like (Florida's) d-line played on the other side of the ball a lot during the game...It was a lot of self-inflicted wounds. Once we get that cleaned up, we're going to start finding gashes in the run game."

Wright and Small were responsible for all 23 carries last week, leaving Dylan Sampson without any. According to head coach Josh Heupel on Monday, Sampson, who totaled three carries for just 8 yards in the Austin Peay game, was available vs. Florida but attributed his lack of contributions to the flow of the game.

Sampson had a strong start to the season, rushing for 52 yards and scoring three times on the ground with another on a 9-yard touchdown reception.

"No, it hasn't been (difficult to balance the running backs rotation)," Halzle said. "Saturday night, obviously Dylan didn't get enough on the field. It is what it is, for whatever reason. He knows what everybody thinks of him. You know what everybody thinks of him. That's an electric guy with the ball in his hands. Find ways to get that guy the ball, whether it's handing it to him, throwing it to him, using him in the screen game, whatever it is. That's a guy that has to have the ball in his hands."

Tim Banks affirmed that tackling is always a point of emphasis in Tennessee practices, but this week it has been even more so.

The Vols struggled to slow down Florida in the first half in part because of a lack of fundamentals, the most evident of which was on running back Trevor Eitenne's 62-yard touchdown run that started a 26-point run for the Gators.

WATCH ON VOLREPORT: Tennessee football players Jabari Small, Jaylen Wright and Gabe Jeudy-Lally meet with the media

Eitenne ended up gashing the Tennessee defense for 172 yards, taking advantage of defenders being out of place or poor form tackling.

According to Pro Football Focus, Tennessee missed 11 tackles with 10 coming from defensive backs.

"We continue to try to eliminate (missed tackles), obviously," Banks said. "What kind of tackles are you missing? Is it not wrapping up? Was it not bringing your feet? Because we're going to practice tackling whether we tackled at a 100% clip or obviously a night like we had Saturday night. We're going to always try to emphasize tackling, but what kind of tackles showed up? We obviously had some open-field miss tackles that we need to get addressed, so we try to put them in those game-like situations the best we can."

Dont'e Thornton Jr. didn't play in the first half against Florida made the most of his targets in the second half.

Thornton had three catches for 53 yards, including a 43-yard reception that set Tennessee up inside the plus 25-yard line in the third quarter.

The 6-foot-5, 214-pound wide receiver looks the part and was one of the Vols' most heralded transfer portal additions when he transferred to Tennessee from Oregon last spring but has yet to make a significant impact.

WATCH ON VOLREPORT: Tennessee football prepares for UTSA

Part of the slow start has been his transition to the system, but the Florida game offered up a positive sample size of what Thornton brings to the offense.

"(Thornton) is a freak athletically, let's start off with that," Halzle said. "His size and speed combination. What we do is different and sometimes there's a learning curve. You've seen it before, like Jalin Hyatt in year 1. Year 2 was different. You saw Dont'e Saturday night make some big plays down the field. He got some balls on the edge and made a guy miss and had got us a nice play back on track when we were behind schedule. And what I love about Dont'e is his attitude hasn't shifted. He hasn't gone into, 'well, I'm not getting the production I want, so now I'm mad.'

"He's been meeting extra, like as much as anybody, like a freshman. So that's what's great about him and I expect his productivity to continue to grow as we go through the season."

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