Well, it seems that the answer to this question is . . . maybe . . . no.
After the Tennessee Volunteers’ dramatic Rally in the Valley against the LSU Tigers (on the heels of quarterback Erik Ainge’s horrendous first half), I posted my Is There Life After Death Valley for Erik Ainge post. My conclusion was, “Sure, if he and his coaches can identify the challenges ahead,” and then I listed three things I thought were key to making that happen:
- Improve decision-making;
- Forget last-year’s injury; and
- Develop chemistry with the team.
Ainge has really not had the opportunity to develop chemistry with the team, so let’s give him the benefit of the doubt there. But it looks like he’s got a ways to go on the other two, which I’ve come to believe are closely related.
Last year against Notre Dame, Ainge tried to make a big play out of nothing when instead of falling on a loose ball (a result of a bad snap), he tried to scoop it up and make something happen. Instead, he was sacked and landed awkwardly on his throwing shoulder, sidelining him for the rest of the season.
I thought that this might have influenced his terrible decision in the LSU game to throw an underhanded pass in his own end zone toward the line of scrimmage when he was in the grasp of a defender. Instead of taking the safety, he threw an interception for a touchdown.
Lesson learned?
Apparently not.
Having thrown one interception against Notre Dame with the team down by a touchdown (he gets some slack for that, too), he was a mess the next series. The Vols opened the drive deep in their own territory with a delay of game penalty. After a kickoff. On third and long, Ainge dropped back, and looked down field and found all receivers covered. The defensive end broke free of a block and wrapped his arms around Ainge. As Ainge was taken to the ground, he flipped a pass toward the scrimmage line.
The play was not only remniscent of the LSU Decision, but it was the second intentional grounding call against Ainge. Luckily, this time, it was not intercepted.
On the first play of the next series, with Tennessee down two touchdowns with under 4:00 minutes to play, Ainge again found no receivers open (maybe not his fault) and scrambled out of the pocket toward the sideline. But instead of running out of bounds to stop the clock, he slid down just in bounds. Like he was trying to do just that. The clock kept ticking.
On the very next play, Ainge threw an interception directly to a defender, who ran it in for a touchdown.
Ainge played a great game until that point. But for him to recover from the Death Valley nightmare, and the 2005 season in general, he’s going to need to improve his decision-making under duress.
