Well, that was ugly.
Tennessee gave me a heart attack about 50 million different times tonight, and
my Old Man coughed up his entire bag of Cheetos when Ty Chandler and Jarrett
Guarantano screwed up their 4th quarter handoff. Despite everything, they
pulled out the game tonight, one that Butch Jones would’ve assuredly lost (or hell, one that Jeremy Pruitt would’ve lost earlier in the season).
Kentucky held the ball
for almost 42 of the 60 minutes, and limited the Vols to only ten possessions
the entire night. The Tennessee defense, after an embarrassing opening drive that saw the
Wildcats go 17 plays for 75 yards over ten minutes, was able to step up in almost every key moment in the final 50 minutes,
even if they did end up surrendering 302 yards on the ground.
Jarrett Guarantano was
the hero again tonight, a sentence I couldn't have imagined typing back in
September. He only had eight passing attempts, but he completed seven of them
for 115 yards and two TDs, and was even the Vol leading rusher with 30 yards. He
moved really well tonight inside and out of the pocket, and his scamper on
third down finished off the game for Tennessee. Pretty impressive for a guy with screws in a
hand that is wrapped up like a fragile Christmas present.
I don’t understand why Tennessee
was playing fewer than eight guys in the box on any play tonight. Kentucky would split
three guys out wide and the Vols would cover them with three defensive backs
and a safety over the top. Why? Lynn Bowden looked like a wounded deer every
time he dropped back to pass. He had 25 passing yards on seven attempts! He’s not going to be able to throw over the top of your defense
because he’s not a passer, HE’S A WIDE RECEIVER PLAYING QUARTERBACK! I get it,
Kentucky runs a funky offense that the Vols won’t see the rest of the season,
or maybe for the next five years, but they don’t do anything that should be
hard to stop. I get it, they only allowed 13 points, but do you think they played well tonight? Kentucky was so limited that they kept themselves from scoring, but they were still able to sustain drives and move the ball and always fall forward. Tennessee looked lost, like they'd never seen a team run an option play before.
Regardless, the Vols won
the game, and we won’t remember how they looked or what happened tomorrow, only
that they were victorious and moved another step closer to bowl eligibility. Kentucky should be a penciled in win every year for Tennessee, and Pruitt is now 2-0 against them. This is the "rivalry" game you should never lose.
Tennessee has some things
they need to clean up over the bye week. They had a touchdown called back in
the third quarter because they couldn’t line up correctly, and on the final
Wildcat drive, the Vols took a timeout and then came out on the field with 12
guys. Trey Smith got flagged for a dumb personal foul, and they got a roughing
the passer on a third and a mile that extended a Kentucky drive. It always seems
like they’re scrambling to get lined up correctly on defense, and tonight was
no exception.
Highlights, outside of JG:
Marquez Callaway led the team
in receiving with 4 catches for 103 yards, and snagged Guarantano’s first TD
pass. Josh Palmer made a great toe tapping TD catch, an incredible
athletic play that forced him to twist his entire body about 180 degrees.
Daniel Bituli was all over
the field tonight, registering 16 tackles, and Darrell Taylor seemed like the only
Tennessee defender capable of setting the edge on the UK option plays. Nigel
Warrior forced the only turnover for the Vols, and probably should’ve had return
TD, only to have it called back questionably by the officials.
Some of those guys are
seniors. Going to be hard to replace them next year.
The Vols have two very
winnable games remaining after the bye week. They go to Missouri on November 23, a team that
has lost three in a row, and then they'll host an atrocious Vanderbilt
team on Thanksgiving Weekend. Win both of those and they’ll be 5-3 in the SEC,
the first time they would've had a winning record in conference play since 2015.
Things feel like they are
going in the right direction for this program. They made enough plays in the
key moments tonight to win, something they were unable to do consistently
during the Dooley and Butch eras. This team could still win 8 games (including
a bowl victory), and that’s with them not being set at quarterback all year AND
having far less than 85 scholarship players.
How nice would it have
been if the Vols had busted out the Beer Barrel tonight? Isn’t that thing in a
closet in Knoxville somewhere? Couldn’t Pruitt or Fulmer have found it, brought
it to Lexington, and then busted it out postgame? How great would it have been
for Jauan Jennings to run around with that thing? Can we get that in Knoxville next year when the Vols win again? Let's make this happen.
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