“Because our offense is so explosive — South Carolina went for it on fourth-and-2 — I think we’re going to see a lot of fourth downs because people feel like they’ve got to keep the ball,” defensive coordinator Todd Grantham said. “We obviously didn’t play the one flip play very good, but we’ll learn from it and move on.”In all seriousness, the officials made things much easier for Tennessee on the flip play Grantham refers to, which came after a "rare" penalty on the defense for delay of game. Richt addressed that by putting this week's referees on notice:
But back to the fourth down conversions, giving up 60% on the season leaves a lot of room for improvement. And that will be a hard row to hoe considering the defense is not performing any better on third downs. A lot of that may be youthful inexperience. Certainly a lot is just flat out confidence.“I don’t know why they call it ‘Delay of game,’” Richt said, “but the rule is if you make any movement that’s not a normal defensive alignment or shift or something like that. If it looks like you’re trying to get somebody to jump offsides, if they jump offsides, it’s on the defense. I’ve never really seen that happen before, and it was pretty crucial, obviously. …“We’ve learned a lesson, can’t do it. I know the team we’re about to play (in Missouri), they shift a lot on defense, and I think they’re trying to get people to jump offsides when they shift. Hopefully, we’ll get that same benefit.”
Which means there's a lot of room for Grantham to start earning that $825K/year.
