Vols take aim at Georgia: Expect to win SEC East
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Chris Low, ESPN Senior Writer
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Tennessee players at SEC media days on Thursday weren’t shy about voicing their goal for the 2023 season, a year removed from the Vols winning 11 games for the first time in more than two decades.
That goal: Win the SEC’s Eastern Division, which would mean unseating two-time defending national champion Georgia.
“That first year, we hoped to win. Now, we expect to win … every game,” senior defensive tackle Omari Thomas said. “There’s a difference.
“Everybody on this team will tell you that we expect to win the East.”
That requires going through the Dawgs, who visit Knoxville on Nov. 18, the next-to-last week of the regular season.
Last season, Tennessee lost to Georgia, 27-13, in Athens. It was a raucous environment, and as rain started to fall in the second half, the Vols wilted amid the weather and the noise. They didn’t have an answer for a Georgia team that was more physical and ready for the big stage.
Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said his team learned a hard lesson from that game.
“Sometimes you’re not ready for that moment,” Heupel said. “You think you are, but you’re not. It’s not the big things, but the little things and how to control your emotions, all those things. You’ve got to learn from it and be better for it.”
The momentum in and around Tennessee’s program — and expectations, too — haven’t spiraled to this level in more than 20 years, about the same time Heupel was playing quarterback at Oklahoma.
A major part of those expectations surrounds rocket-armed quarterback Joe Milton III, who replaces Hendon Hooker and has seen his stock soar this offseason with his performance at the Manning Passing Academy and NFL scouts suggesting he could be an early NFL first-round pick.
Milton, entering his fifth season of college football after starting his career at Michigan, isn’t backing down from any of it — be it unseating Georgia or taking down Alabama and Florida for a second straight season.
And while Milton realizes the Vols aren’t going to sneak up on anybody this season and will undoubtedly be circled on more than a few teams’ calendars, he has a ready answer.
“That’s what we signed up for,” he said. “That’s what we’ve built our team to be, and we’re going out there to make it happen.”
Tennessee snapped a 15-game losing streak against Alabama last season and beat Florida for only the second time in the past 18 seasons. The Vols have to travel to both Tuscaloosa and Gainesville this season, meaning the schedule could be more menacing than a year ago.
“We’re just playing a game that we love and doing the things we want to do, and that’s winning the East,” Milton said. “That’s something we’ve set our minds to and that’s something we’re willing to get done no matter what it takes.”
What Heupel has been most pleased with is that he hasn’t seen any complacency since the end of the Vols’ breakthrough season.
“There were great moments from last year, big wins, great victory scenes, the Orange Bowl win. Absolutely,” Heupel said. “But when we got back in January, nobody was living in that. There was a heightened sense of urgency, hyper competitiveness, more accountability.
“Now, you don’t know at this time of year how that parlays itself on Saturdays in the fall, but it gives you a chance.”
Senior tight end Jacob Warren grew up in Knoxville, and his father, James, played for Tennessee in the early 1990s. He gets the passion of the Big Orange Nation and has seen it spill overboard at times, especially with the Vols suffering through eight losing seasons in the previous 13 years before Heupel arrived.
“No one has higher expectations than we do, and I know the people and all the fans think they do. But no one wants it more than we do,” Warren said. “And nobody expects that we’re going to win more games than we do. We obviously appreciate the support, but no one has higher expectations than we do, and that’s the way it should be.”
Heupel said simply, “Our fan base is as passionate as any, and you want to get on the right side of that passion.”
It’s a fan base that can’t wait to see what Tennessee has for an encore in Year No. 3 under Heupel, who threw a little shade Texas’ way with the Longhorns set to join the SEC in 2024.
“There’s only one UT, one right shade of orange,” Heupel said.
If Tennessee’s players have their way, it’s a shade of orange that will be spread throughout Mercedes-Benz Stadium this Dec. 2 in the SEC championship game.
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Kristen Shilton
TORONTO — The Maple Leafs‘ offense was missing in action again in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals Wednesday night, as a 6-1 loss to the Florida Panthers now has Toronto facing playoff elimination.
The Leafs, who were shut out 2-0 in Game 4, didn’t score until the final two minutes of Game 5 and now trail 3-2 in the best-of-seven series after holding a 2-0 lead.
Toronto’s top skaters were, again, invisible. Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander have yet to record a goal in the second round. And now the Leafs will have to log consecutive wins to extend their postseason.
“I think everybody’s got to look in the mirror,” Matthews said. “Myself included. Everybody wants to be better. Everybody wants to win.”
Matthews has just three goals in the Leafs’ last 21 games. He was third on the team in regular-season scoring, with 33 goals in 67 games.
It wasn’t just Matthews, though. Toronto was lifeless from the start of Game 5 and never seemed to challenge Florida at either end of the ice.
The Panthers heavily outplayed the Leafs throughout the first period, and it was defenseman Aaron Ekblad who finally beat goaltender Joseph Woll to give Florida a 1-0 lead through 20 minutes.
While Woll kept Toronto in a tight matchup, it was clear already the Leafs were struggling to keep up with the Panthers.
“We played slow,” Toronto coach Craig Berube said. “They were fast, they were on us, they were hungrier. That’s the first period, and that sets the tone for the game. It is hard to explain it. We all need to be better, me included. You can’t start the game that way, that’s a big thing for me.”
The Panthers opened the floodgates in the second period, helped by a landslide of Leafs mistakes. Dmitry Kulikov extended Florida’s lead with a goal tipped in by Leafs forward Scott Laughton‘s stick. Then Marner’s attempt to execute a spinning backhand pass in his own zone led to a turnover in the neutral zone that was picked up by Jesper Boqvist and snapped past Woll to give Florida a 3-0 lead midway through the second frame.
Boqvist entered the lineup in Game 5 to replace the injured Evan Rodrigues, who left Sunday’s Game 4 following a hit from Leafs defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson.
Niko Mikkola made it 4-0 before the end of the period, giving three Florida defensemen goals on the night.
By the time A.J. Greer scored Florida’s fifth goal — the first playoff make of his career — in the third period, it was time for Toronto to make a change in net, with Woll being replaced by Matt Murray.
Frustrated fans, who had booed the Leafs off their own ice to end the second period, began throwing items onto the sheet, including a Matthews jersey. People were exiting in droves by early in the third period.
“We didn’t give them much reason to stick around,” Matthews said.
Woll finished the game with five goals on 25 shots for an .800 save percentage.
Florida wasn’t done after Woll’s departure, though, with Sam Bennett adding a power play goal to give the Panthers a 6-0 lead halfway through the third period.
Toronto’s top skaters have had no response for Florida’s suffocating pressure — or Sergei Bobrovsky‘s impressive play.
Since giving up 13 goals to Toronto through the series’ first three games, Bobrovsky has been airtight in denying the Leafs any opportunity to score.
Berube tried making adjustments. He inserted David Kampf and Nicholas Robertson into the lineup for Game 5 to try and generate a spark, and moved Max Pacioretty to the top line during the game in an effort to generate some momentum. Nothing seemed to help.
Toronto hadn’t registered a goal since 10:56 of the third period of Game 3 until Robertson put one past Bobrovsky with 90 seconds left Wednesday night. It was all too little, too late.
“Tonight, it wasn’t a good game for anybody,” Berube said. “Anybody. All of us. it was not a good game.”
Leafs defenseman Chris Tanev was quick to shoulder the burden of Toronto’s defeat, echoing a refrain heard around the locker room from players determined not to let this be the penultimate game of their season.
“I’ll take responsibility,” Tanev said. “I need to be better. If I’m a minus player [at minus-2 in Game 5], we’re probably not going to win the game. It’s on me. I’ll take responsibility for the game.”
Game 6 is Friday in Florida.
LAS VEGAS — Kasperi Kapanen scored on a scramble in front of the net at 7:14 of overtime, and the Edmonton Oilers beat the Vegas Golden Knights 1-0 in Game 5 on Wednesday night to advance to the Western Conference finals for the second year in a row.
The Oilers, who last season made it to the Stanley Cup Final before losing in seven games to Florida, will play Dallas or Winnipeg in the next round. The Stars, who lead their series 3-1, will go for a series win Thursday night.
Kapanen’s goal backed up another shutout performance from goalie Stuart Skinner, who made 24 saves and drew several chants of “Stu! Stu!” from Oilers fans in the crowd. Skinner, who was benched two games into the playoffs, also blanked the Golden Knights in Game 4. This was his third start in a row in replacing injured Calvin Pickard.
Adin Hill made 29 saves for Vegas.
Both teams also were involved in the two most recent scoreless playoff games to reach overtime. The Oilers lost to Winnipeg on May 21, 2021, five days after the Golden Knights were defeated by Minnesota.
Edmonton’s only other 1-0 overtime playoff victory occurred in 1997 over Dallas. Vegas has yet to win a postseason game by that score in OT.
The Golden Knights played without captain Mark Stone because of an upper-body injury that caused him to sit out most of Game 3 on Saturday. He played in Game 4 on Monday but was far from being at full health.
Neither team scored through the first two periods, and prime scoring chances were at a premium. There were only five high-danger chances, according to Natural Stat Trick, and the Golden Knights had four of them.
But each team had a grade-A chance early in the third period. Vegas’ Brett Howden whiffed on a tap-in after taking a fantastic pass from Jack Eichel, and shortly after Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl failed to convert on a breakaway. Connor McDavid had a chance on a 2-on-1 to end the game in regulation but was denied by Hill with 1:06 left.
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