ATHENS, Georgia — A pair of thoughts rattled around this brain throughout the second half of top-ranked Tennessee’s 27-13 loss at third-ranked Georgia on Saturday afternoon here at Sanford Stadium. Both are important, but the perspective of time puts them into two drastically different piles.

In the long term, Tennessee needs more dudes. These Vols have a lot of guys, but not enough dudes. They have some dudes. Georgia has wave after wave of dudes. A tsunami of dudes. Dudes up front, dudes at linebacker and dudes on the back end. Several of those dudes were injured and couldn’t play Saturday. It mattered not, because Kirby Smart has built Dude Mountain during his time with the Dawgs. There’s no limit on his credit card of dudes. It’s some fancy color of plastic that’s reserved only for those with yachts the size of a city block.

That’s the long term challenge facing Tennessee against Georgia and Alabama.

“But Wes, you moron, Tennessee just beat Alabama,” you might be thinking. And you’re right. The Vols did indeed end their miserable losing streak to the Crimson Tide just a few weeks ago at Neyland Stadium.

That brings things back to Thought No. 2 from Saturday.

In the short term, Tennessee absolutely can beat any team in the country in any venue in the country, but it has to execute exponentially better than it did Saturday in Athens.

Every team has a checklist of…