Tennessee defensive backs Cameron Sutton, left, and defensive end Derek Barnett have had moments to celebrate this season, but Saturday's 10-9 loss to Florida is one they must force themselves to get past.KNOXVILLE -- With his team clinging to a nervy two-point lead Saturday, Cam Sutton was inches away from an interception that could have set Tennessee up to seal a win.
Two plays later, Florida was on the edge of field-goal range.
The Gators eventually got there, and Austin Hardin hit from 49 yards to complete Florida's comeback and dump the disappointment of defeat on the Volunteers.
Nearly 48 hours later, a question about how long it took for Tennessee's budding star cornerback to move past the defeat still gave Sutton pause.
"A loss like that, especially to our rival," he said Monday, "you never want to lose your rivalry game. For myself, probably getting over a loss, it'd probably take a minute."
And he didn't mean 60 seconds.
"We can still do a lot of big things," Sutton added. "We can't dwell on those losses. We've got to keep moving forward, keep believing in each other, keep believing in what this program is trying to do and hopefully come out with more wins and losses the rest of the season."
The rest of the season starts Saturday with a homecoming visit from UT Chattanooga.
After disappointing losses to Oklahoma and Georgia from which the Vols could take some good and use for motivation, Tennessee's loss to Florida provided the first taste of truly bitter disappointment for this team.
"The mission remains the same," said second-year coach Butch Jones. "We talk about being relentless. We're not going away. It's just one game. In this conference and in college football, every game and every week is a new season in and of itself, so we have to keep pressing along.
"How do we respond? What's our leadership like? First time this team has really suffered some adversity and some noise and some clutter. How do we respond? I know our football team pretty well, and I think they'll respond ready to go.
Tennessee coach Butch Jones is furious after a second quarter play during his team's loss to Florida last Saturday in Knoxville."There's many things that we have to fix and improve on, and this week is going to be about ourselves."
From the atmosphere to the current state of the Gators, it was all set up for the Vols to snap a nine-year losing streak.
Instead, Tennessee managed 150-plus fewer yards and allowed twice the sacks it did against Georgia, and uncharacteristic penalties and quarterback Justin Worley's three turnovers doomed the Vols.
The dejection was evident on the faces and in the voices of Tennessee's players Saturday, and linebacker/defensive end Curt Maggitt perhaps struggled the most to contain his emotions.
The reaction was a little bit different when they lost in Norman, Okla., and Athens, Ga..
"A loss is a loss," linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin said. "Whether it's the Oklahoma loss or the Georgia loss, everyone's going to hurt after that loss. It's that much worse because it's Florida. It's a rivalry game, but we're going to hurt for a while and everybody's going to bounce back. We're not going to live on that.
"We're going to be ready to go next week and start focusing forward, starting today."
Jones said he "felt like everyone else in Vol nation" after the Florida loss, which probably has generated the most negative vibes around the program since perhaps the loss to Vanderbilt in Knoxville last November.
From questions about his offensive line to the zone-read-option aspect of the Vols' offense, the coach was a little bit edgier than normal Monday, and he and his staff may need to take a similar approach in helping their players pick themselves up off the mat this week.
"You play the game to win the football game and you expect to win," he said. "It's everything I've spoke about, is this football team isn't hoping to win. They believe they're going to win every time that they step out onto the football field.
"It should hurt, and I think that's been the progression of our football program, is you want to see that hurt. Now it's how do we respond."
Sutton has no worries about how the Vols will handle it.
"Nobody's satisfied with losing, especially when we know we should have won those games," he said. "The mental errors and the mistakes we had in those games cost us those games, more just beating ourselves than our opponents beating us. It happens, and after those games we learn from those mistakes and correct those things the day after.
"Our team is very motivated and willing to learn. We know that we can't dwell on the past and things that we don't have control over anymore. We know we just have to keep pushing forward and keep playing for each other, and hopefully the rest of the season goes as planned and how we want it to go."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.