Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel paused. It was a good long pause, 14.64 seconds when hand-timed.

He drummed his hands on the podium at Bryant-Denny Stadium and grunted a bit, but said nothing.

“Next question,” Heupel finally answered the reporter’s question. “Yeah, was that long enough silence?”

The question: Did Heupel think the officiating during his team’s 34-20 loss against Alabama football was one-sided toward the Crimson Tide?

He never did answer. But Tennessee fans were unhappy with the way some of the calls in the game went, from a defensive holding call on an Alabama pass that went well out of bounds, to a bizarre fair catch called for by a player who didn’t catch the kick, which pinned the Volunteers at their own four-yard line.

There was plenty else to be unhappy with as well. The Volunteers blew a 20-6 halftime lead on their way to a Third Saturday in October loss.

“Second half, we just weren’t good enough. From me, to our coaches, to our players, gotta be able to play for 60 minutes against a good football team and on the road. Extremely disappointed with the outcome. I told the guys in the locker room. ‘They compete, man.’ They do. We don’t play smart enough at times, but they compete, and I’d go with these guys anywhere.”

Tennessee has had trouble stopping big momentum shifts during road games. The Volunteers, now 5-2 on the season, 2-2 in SEC play, lost earlier in the season against Florida in a similar manner.

After the Alabama game, Heupel was asked how to stop those shifts away from Neyland Stadium.

“I don’t know,” Heupel said. “The communication is the only thing that’s, in my opinion, more difficult, as long as you’re settled into your job and doing that when you’re out between the white lines. Today, that’s a good football team, talking about Alabama, and we didn’t reset, refocus, and make any plays in the second half. That’s the end result.”

Heupel was also asked what caused the shift in momentum to start the third quarter. That frame began with Alabama getting the ball, and scoring two plays later, on a deep throw from Jalen Milroe to Isaiah Bond.

“They came out and hit one split zone on us and ended up getting seven,” Heupel said. “We get called for signaling fair catch on the front line on the sky kick, ball gets placed at the four. You’re in a tough situation coming out, don’t pick it up, they get an opportunity and go get some more points. At the end of the day, our guys didn’t stop competing. We weren’t smart enough. We weren’t good enough, starting with me in the second half.”

Next week, Tennessee heads to Lexington, to face Kentucky on the road.