Tennessee once again did not play particularly well, but once again Tennessee won overcoming another poor first half to knock off Kentucky 28-18 at Neyland Stadium.
The Vols’ defense forced three huge turnovers while Nico Iamaleava turned in his best performance of the season. Here’s four quick takeaways on the win.
An Oddly Flat Start For Tennessee’s Defense
Kentucky’s offense has largely been dreadful this season. Tennessee’s defense has been one of the best in the sport. Very surprisingly, it was Kentucky’s offense that came out rolling against the Vols’ defense.
In fact, Kentucky broke a 50 yard run on the very first play of the game. It was longest play that Tennessee’s defense has allowed all season. The Vols defense bowed up and ended up forcing a turnover on downs by stopping Kentucky at fourth-and-one at the five-yard line.
But the Wildcats found the end zone on their ensuing drive, going 75 yards on six plays. Brock Vandagriff hit a 25-yard pass to open the drive, a 17-yard pass to Dane Key on third down and then a 27-yard touchdown to Josh Kattus on a broken coverage.
By the end of the first quarter, Kentucky had 161 yards which was its most in a single quarter all season. Tennessee’s defense largely returned to form the rest of the way but the uncharacteristic start gave the Wildcats early life.
More First Half Missed Scoring Opportunities
After a strong offensive second half against Alabama and an open date a week ago, Tennessee was looking to leave its first half offensive woes in October. While the Vols weren’t shut out, that didn’t turn out to be the case and just like the two weeks prior, it was self inflicted mistakes that kept costing Tennessee.
Before its final drive of the night that started with 30 seconds left, Tennessee had five first half drives. The Vols reached Kentucky territory in all five drives and reached the red zone in three drives. On the two drives that didn’t reach the red zone, Chris Brazzell dropped what should have been a touchdown pass on a beautiful deep ball from Nico Iamaleava and Dylan Sampson fumbled at the Wildcats’ 22-yard line.
The Vols’ first drive reached the 15 yard line before a sack and holding pushed them back and led to a missed Max Gilbert 43-yard field goal. Another drive reached the 18-yard line before a third down sack pushed Tennessee back and led to a Gilbert missed 40-yard field goal.
Tennessee even had a chance to score on the previously mentioned final drive but a bad spot and poor clock management derailed those hopes. The Vols moved the ball with ease in the first half, totaling 254 yards. But they only scored seven points as self inflicted mistakes derailed them.
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Game Changing Turnovers
While Tennessee turned the ball over in the red zone, its defense forced turnovers to give them good field position three times and the ball in scoring range twice.
Andre Turrentine intercepted Brock Vandagriff in the first quarter to give Tennessee the ball at the Wildcats’ 45-yard line. That was the drive when Sampson fumbled as Tennessee didn’t do anything with it but that wasn’t the case for the next two.
The next came early in the second half when Josh Josephs stripped Vandragriff as he was throwing and Jeremiah Telander recovered it to set Tennessee up at the Wildcats’ 27-yard line. Five plays later and Dylan Sampson bowled into the end zone from six yards out to give the Vols’ their first lead of the game.
Two drives later, Will Brooks made what might have been the biggest play of the game. The super senior safety jumped in front of a Gavin Wimsatt pass and returned it 67 yards down to the 10-yard line. Two plays later, Iamaleava found Miles Kitselman for a six-yard touchdown.
Tennessee forced three turnovers and two of them had an absolutely massive impact on the game.
Nico Iamaleava Plays His Best Game Of His Career
Despite Tennessee’s offense still having a number of the same issues that have plagued them this season, Nico Iamaleava was certainly not one of them.
Iamaleava played the best game of his career against meaningful competition, completing 28-of-38 passes for 292 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions.
But the redshirt freshman quarterback was even better than the stats looked. For one, both Brazzell and Chas Nimrod dropped beautiful throws that should have been long touchdowns. The Nimrod drop in the fourth quarter was particularly brutal as Iamaleava worked through his progression and delivered a dart over the middle. Instead of a 68-yard touchdown it led directly to a punt.
On the ensuing drive, Tennessee was once again looking to ice the game and Iamaleava was nails. His best play came rolling right and delivering a dart to a well guarded Dont’e Thornton, moving the sticks on third-and-seven.
The three plays later on third-and-seven again, he hit Bru McCoy on a quick curl route to move the sticks and set the Vols up for Dylan Sampson’s game sealing score.
Iamaleava has struggled at time this season. He was fantastic against Kentucky.
