Joe Milton and Tennessee football fell to CFP No. 14 Mizzou Saturday in Columbia, Missouri.

Milton was far from perfect, but not the main problem with Tennessee’s loss despite the Tennessee offense scoring just 7 points. He finished Saturday with 267 passing yards, 1 touchdown and 1 interception.

Instead, the true issues lie in the details. Tennessee committed 9 penalties for 95 yards on Saturday, including a lot of inopportune holding penalties that seemed to come at the most crucial moments.

On top of that, Tennessee’s usually deadly run game was suffocated by the Tigers’ stout defensive front and Brady Cook torched a battered Vols secondary with no Vols pass rush to speak of.

Following the game, Milton was asked to assess the loss to the Tigers. And even though Missouri is in a different class than Florida in the SEC, Milton insisted that the loss felt a lot like the Vols’ Week 3 setback at Florida because Tennessee shot itself in the foot.

It’s hard to disagree with his assessment. Penalties are a serious problem with this team. The Vols currently lead the conference in average penalty flags thrown per game and total penalty yards per game this season by a fairly considerable margin. You won’t win many games on the road making those types of mistakes.

Tennessee is hurtling towards an 8-4 regular season finish in Year 3 of the Josh Heupel era.