Florida’s offense going cold in the second half of its 38-28 road loss to Tennessee on Saturday proved to be one of the biggest storylines of the contest, but miscues on defense and special teams also hurt the Gators in Knoxville.

Especially in the second half, Tennessee quarterback Joshua Dobbs exploited the Florida secondary on multiple occasions. After Dobbs’ receivers dropped a number of his passes in the first half, that wasn’t nearly as much of an issue for the Volunteers down the stretch. Dobbs went 9-of-12 passing in the second half for 235 yards and four touchdowns against one pick as the Vols scored 38 unanswered points Saturday.

“I think it’s interesting, when you look back, I think you have to look at the first half on the dropped passes. They did a great job of coming back to things that were there and not saying, ‘Oh, they took it away,’ because we really didn’t,” McElwain said. “Think about it, they had three or four big drops on some of those over routes. Those were some they didn’t give up on.”