Vol's Kiffin Looked Good, Monte That Is; Lane Still Stumbling on Offense

The acorn may not fall far from the tree, but in this case, it's still a nut.

Monte Kiffin showed that all his work on coming up with ways to stop Florida did indeed have the Gators scratching to earn all their points the hard way.

Lane, on the other hand, proved that his "Offensive Genius" may be greatly overrated.

Tennessee was playing not to be blown out. Lane Kiffin and the offense simply tucked their tails and gave up early in the third quarter.

Following Jonathan Crompton's early third-quarter interception, Lane went into ultra-conservative mode and followed with a quick three-and-out on running plays, including a run up the middle on third and long.

Something started happening that was far worse than the predicted blow out that somehow 'Father Monte' was avoiding for the rest of the team.

For the Vols, they watched their head coach bow his head and simply give up without even reaching the midway point of the third quarter.

Down only 10 points, Lane Kiffin with his runs up the middle, showed everyone in football he had no faith in his players who were giving their all. He was simply trying not to lose any worse.

You have to give the Volunteer players credit, however. With Florida driving and fixing to go up 24 still early in the fourth quarter, an opportune fumble seemed to give them life following a good return on the fumble.

Brown and Hardesy started grinding out hard yardage, and soon the Vols had closed to 10 once again with a running game that finally scored their first touchdown of the day, but ran valuable time off the clock.

Monte's defense held the Gators to a three and out and with momentum swinging to the Vols, what would Kiffin do? Go for the win or play conservatively, kill the clock, and get out with a moral victory.

The answer was give up on your players, play to save yourself from a possible turnover and never even attempted to complete a pass over 10 yards.

Both Crompton, (who should have been flagged for an intentional grounding in that last possession) and Kiffin had no intention to try and go for the win.

Finally in futility on fourth down, they finally threw one deep pass which was only in essence a punt. A poor decision by the Florida Gator in intercepting it gave up lots of yardage and the game was over.

What would have happened had Lane not given up so early in the third quarter? Could they have pulled it out? We'll never know.

The press punk who once said any press is good press, was hoping to hang onto a 10- to 17-point defeat and be able to beat his chest and say in his press conference that everybody who predicted a 30-point-or-more blowout was wrong and he was right.

What other coach would dare take a defeat where he simply gave up tried to kill the clock and trumpet it into a personal victory?

Perhaps the recruits are smarter than Kiffin thinks and will see him as a coach who gives up on his players when the chips are down.

At least one Kiffin lived up to his billing; the other one was a quitter.

The rest of the SEC is glad that's the message he's sending.