NASHVILLE, Tn. — The story was writing itself. Tennessee, with its season on the line, couldn’t get out of its own way following behind Vanderbilt 14-0 in the game’s first five minutes.
It was Tennessee fans fear all week. With a chance to make the College Football Playoff, the Vols would fall flat and lose to a scrappy Vanderbilt team. Same ole Tennessee was going to show up in the mid state and blow it. That looked like reality until it wasn’t as the Vols ripped off a 36-3 run and largely coasted past Vanderbilt to a 36-23 victory.
“We prepared the right way, practiced the right way,” Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel said postgame. “We sure didn’t start the right way. The competitive composure, belief in the guys around you, just kept fighting and flipped the game there in the second quarter and early third.”
Tennessee used a pair of chunk pass plays to help flip momentum. Nico Iamaleava found Dont’e Thornton for a 28-yard touchdown right after Vanderbilt went up 14-0. Then with Tennessee trailing 17-10 in the second quarter, Iamaleava found Thornton on a slant and the receiver took it 86 yards for a touchdown.
Those plays were huge and Tennessee’s offense was good throughout the game, but it was the Vols’ defense that truly made it a comfortable win.
Vanderbilt had the ball in Tennessee territory twice in the first half leading by two scores. The Vols were teetering but the defense made stops. First, an acrobatic Jermod McCoy interception in the end zone and then a turnover on downs.
“Great players make great players,” Heupel said of the interception. “And (Jer)Mod, just he’s a playmaker. … His wide receiver skills as a high school guy, I think, are part of his makeup as a DB. When the ball’s up in the air, he doesn’t panic. He knows how to go and attack the football. He understands body position. Just an elite player.”
Those stops solidified Tennessee as its offense started to get going but they kept playing at a high level after that. Before Vanderbilt’s final 63 yard touchdown drive, the Commodores had just 149 total yards of offense. The Commodores ended with 212 yards of offense and just 104 passing yards.
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Tennessee’s defense has been stout and the Vols’ strength all season, they showed up again with the season on the line to clinch a playoff birth.
“Defensively I thought we did a great job bottling (Deigo Pavia) up all day long and the run game, and really limited in their pass game until the late drive in the fourth,” Heupel said.
Tennessee remains a very flawed football team. Its offense has mostly been average and its passing game is very hit-or-miss. They have started flat in a number of games this season and continue to hurt themselves game-in and game-out with avoidable penalties.
But with its season on the line, Tennessee responded to early adversity to earn its 10th win and clinch a spot in the College Football Playoffs. It’s the Vols’ second 10-win regular season in the last three years, something they hadn’t done in the previous 20 years.
Tennessee isn’t the best program in the country nor are they the best program in its conference. But they definitely aren’t the same old Tennessee.
They’ll look to further prove that point by winning postseason games in the weeks to come. The flawed nature of Tennessee’s team makes a deep run seem unlikely but gaze across the country and tell me which teams aren’t flawed. There are very few of them.
“Next step for us as a program,” Heupel said of making the playoffs. “It was a goal, but there was an expectation to be in this, and that comes from the work that everybody’s put in and who we have in the building. Proud of these guys for executing and putting us in a position to be there. Now the next season starts, what are we gonna do with it?”
