Vols insider confirms suspicion about the week before Tennessee's loss to the Arkansas Razorbacks

Shortly after the Tennessee Vols' loss to the Arkansas Razorbacks last Saturday night, junior running back Dylan Sampson told reporters that he felt like UT's preparation the week before the game was a little "lackadaisical".

"If you go back and look, probably some of our actions were a little lackadaisical with the bye week," said Sampson . "You know, taking things for granted. I told my team already in the locker room, we can't take those things for granted. We can't just flip the switch on. Every time we go out there, on the practice field, in the meeting room, we've gotta have great attention to detail."

Vols redshirt senior linebacker Keenan Pili, however, disagreed with the idea that Tennessee was "lackadaisical".

VolQuest's Brent Hubbs joined 104.5 The Zone's Ramon, Kayla, and Will on Friday morning and he noted that folks around the UT program that he's spoke with agreed that the week before the Arkansas game could've been better for Tennessee.

"You talk to people privately and there's a lot of people that say 'yeah, it wasn't the best set of practices that we've seen in the Josh Heupel era,'" said Hubbs. "Even though when asked about it, Heupel kind of downplayed it and said that practice was fine....I think at that point, Josh Heupel was really tired of talking about Arkansas and wanted to go forward and talk about Florida."

That's just something that happens in sports sometimes. We've seen some really elite teams, at the collegiate and pro levels, have off weeks/games. It's the human element of the game that fans/media often forget about. These coaches and players aren't robots. They aren't football coaches and players 24/7. They have families, friends, and loved ones. They have a life outside of football. They have real life worries and concerns. And sometimes, you just don't have your best week. It happens to all of us. Just not all of us are playing football in front of thousands of fans.

The good news for Tennessee is that it sounds like the tough loss to Arkansas has refocused and reenergized everyone in the UT football program. And they'll look to bounce back in a big way on Saturday night in Neyland Stadium in an extremely important showdown with the Florida Gators.

Related: Former Vol gets real about Tennessee RB Dylan Sampson's 'lackadaisical' comments after loss to Arkansas