By KYLE ROBERTS

Associate Sports Editor

Bulldog football (2-2, 1-0) suffered its second loss in a row on Sept. 25 against an offensively efficient Tennessee Volunteers (3-0, 0-0) squad in Knoxville, Tenn., in front of a crowd of 104,257 in Neyland Stadium, by a final score of 42-17.

"I was pleased with the effort, first of all," Tech head coach Jack Bicknell III, said. "I thought our guys played extremely hard and played that way from the beginning to the very end."

The Bulldog defense gave up 595 total yards for the game with 347 on the ground and 248 through the air.

"They were a very good football team in a tough place to play, but we played hard," Bicknell said. "I saw some good points, such as our punt coverage being much better than it was against Miami and not fumbling.

"Our receivers came alive by making plays against good cornerbacks, and [junior quarterback] Matt Kubik threw the ball well. Getting beat 42-17 is not what you are looking for, but there were some positives that we're going to build on."

Tech suffered a first-quarter loss when junior starting quarterback Donald Allen injured his shoulder. Kubik came in and threw for 17 of 30 passes for 258 yards, including one 33-yard touchdown pass to Julius Cosby with 2:44 left in the first quarter.

Tennessee wasted no time retaliating with a two-play, 74-yard drive, mostly on the legs of senior running back Cedric Houston.

Houston finished the game with 160 yards on 16 carries with two touchdowns. Vols' backup Gerald Riggs also carried the ball 16 times but for 116 yards.

"We just couldn't stop their running game," Bicknell said. "That's something we obviously have to do."

Tech's star running back Ryan Moats finished with 97 yards and a 37-yard touchdown run with 32 seconds left in the first quarter. After a 14-7 lead over the Volunteers, the Bulldogs would not score again in the first half.

Tennessee came alive in the second quarter when true freshman quarterback Erik Ainge threw his first of three touchdown passes with 13:01 left in the first half.

Ainge finished by completing 10 of 15 for 198 yards. Brent Schaeffer, the Volunteers' second true freshman quarterback, finished 3 of 7 for 50 yards and one touchdown.

Ainge threw his second touchdown pass at the 7:09 mark, and after a Kubik interception, Houston ran in for his second touchdown with 21 seconds left in the first half.

Tennessee struck again with Ainge's third touchdown pass with 6:42 in the third quarter to take a 35-14 lead.

The Volunteers stingy defense gave up little in the second half and only allowed Tech to score a field goal off the foot of freshman kicker Danny Howerdel with 5:09 left in the third quarter.

Tech's defense gave up one final score on a third-quarter Schaeffer touchdown pass with 1:41 on the clock. Neither team scored in the final quarter and ended the game at 42-17.

"I did not believe the score indicated how close the game really was," Bicknell said. "I thought we were in it for sure until the very end."

The Bulldogs will return home to play the Fresno State University Bulldogs in "The Battle of Bone" on Saturday at 6 p.m. in Joe Aillet Stadium.