Week six of college football came out as a tsunami, which swiped away all the major names. We saw No. 1 Alabama losing to its inferior team, Vanderbilt. And Tennessee fell 14-19 to Arkansas. That’s wild! That too, because their quarterback, Nico Lamaleava, missed the bus. “At the very end of it, with the clock and timeout situations we had, trying to give yourself a chance to go answer, head coach Josh Heupel said, disappointed with his team and the game results. What do analysts have to say about it? Let’s learn.

Tennessee quarterback Nico Lamaleava’s dumb mistake of not throwing a Hail Mary, at the last moments of the game drew harsh comments from NFL lenged Shannon Sharpe. Sharpe could not keep his calm, saying, “Can you imagine? Had he done this in the NFL, he would not be able to go home.” He said this in response to a generic point of view given by his co-host, Ocho, who said that Nico is still young and that if he came across such a situation in the future, he would not make the same mistake.

Sharpe began renting out his frustration in Lamaleava’s failure, who failed to grasp some basic rules of clock management. “You guarantee to lose 100% of the time if you run out of bounds with no time on the clock and you’re trailing on the scoreboard,” Shape noted. Highlighting the gravity of Nico’s foolish act. Because instead of giving his team an ultimate shot at a touchdown or even hoping for a miracle, Nico just wasted the ultimate moments of the game by running out of bounds.

While explaining what Nico’s decision meant for the game’s results, Sharpe was devastated. “He took all the probability. Good and or indifferent. He ran out of bounds and took that on his back,” Sharpe remarked, pointing out that Nico’s choice left his team without any hope of pulling off a last-second victory. Instead, he indirectly handed it over to their opponents.

Sharpe, being a football player himself, was in shock to see such behavior. As per him, that’s the least one can expect from a collegiate player. “That’s football IQ. You gotta know that if I run out of bounds, we’re guaranteed to lose. You’ve got to put the ball in the end zone and give your team a chance, Sharpe added. Driving home, the fact that the Tennessee quarterback’s lack of presence of mind cost them a defeat that could have turned into a win. What happened just happens; we can’t change that. Besides, let’s learn in depth what was happening in the game at that point in time.

Why didn’t Tennessee pull out a win?

Tennessee football suffered its first defeat of the 2024 college football season, sinking down 14-19 to Arkansas. However, the game went upside down when Arkansas quarterback Malachi Singleton ran toward the end zone to score a touchdown.

When the game ended, Josh Heupel explained that it could not be a mistake. They had all the chances to secure a win, and they just chose to hand it over to Arkansas. With two timeouts left and the clock ticking at 3:20, Tennessee needed its offense to answer. The Razorbacks began their last chance at their 41-yard line and swiftly moved down the field with a 13-yard pass and a 24-yard run by Braylen Rusell. They reached the Tennessee 11-yard line after Russell rushed for 11 yards.

However, Nico had a chance to lead his team to victory. He started by connecting on a 42-yard pass to Don’te Thorton, which made them closer to Arkansas’s 25-yard line. But they lost the chance when Nico missed a crucial pass to tight end Miles Kitselman and then fumbled a snap recovered for a 5-yard gain by Dylan Sampson. With only 13 seconds remaining, Tennessee called a timeout, but Nico could not complete his next pass to chase Nimrod. Followed by another timeout 6 seconds into the game. But Nico scrambled on the last play but ran out of bounds without a pass, marking their first loss of the season.