Tennessee football concluded its regular season by defeating Vanderbilt 36-23 at FirstBank Stadium in Nashville. While it was a comfortable win in the end, it wasn’t always pretty for the Vols as they earned their 10th win of the regular season.
Here’s five critical moments from Tennessee’s sixth straight win over its instate rival.
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Opening Kick
Tennessee hadn’t allowed a special teams touchdown all season and had allowed very few long kickoff or punt returns all season. But Vanderbilt’s Junior Sherrill found a crease and took the opening kickoff of the game back 100 yards for a Vanderbilt touchdown.
Allowing a special teams touchdown on the opening play of the game was bad enough but allowing it against a team whose offense has struggled to score in recent weeks was even worse.
The touchdown on the first play gave Vanderbilt an early lead and some belief that they could pull the upset.
Consecutive Third Down Conversions
Things went from bad to worse for Tennessee following the game’s opening kick with Dylan Sampson fumbling on the second play of the ensuing drive, giving Vanderbilt strong field position. With a ball control offense, Vanderbilt is dependent on converting on third downs. That made Tennessee’s ability to get off the field on third down one of the biggest keys to the game.
Tennessee quickly forced a pair of third downs on the drive but was unable to get off the field as the Commodores ran a slant to convert third-and-six and ran up the middle to convert third-and-five. Those two conversions set Vanderbilt up for a short touchdown run to give the Commodores a 14-0 lead.
That put the Vols in an early danger zone and made them work out of a quick hole.
A Crucial Fourth Down Stop
Tennessee had steadied itself some but still trailed 17-7 in the second quarter when Vanderbilt had it fourth-and-two at the Vols’ 46-yard line. The Commodores still had the momentum and could have put Tennessee in an either bigger hole if they scored a touchdown on the drive.
The Commodores brought in their heavy set and tried to go play action but Tennessee had it snuffed out. Pavia tried to take off running but Bryson Eason, Will Brooks and a host of Vols were there to make the play and force the turnover on downs.
That proved to be a major inflection point in the game as Tennessee’s offense started to find its rhythm on the ensuing drive and the Vols’ was dominant for the rest of the game.
Iamaleava To Kitselman
Tennessee was moving the ball late in the first half with the game tied. With just over 30 seconds remaining in the half Nico Iamaleava hit Chris Brazzell for a 14 yard completion. That all but guaranteed that Tennessee would get points on the drive but a touchdown was still a tough task with the clock situation.
But that’s when Tennessee snuck Miles Kitselman out down the seem and Nico Iamaleava dropped a dime over top for an 18-yard touchdown.
The play gave Tennessee its first lead of the day and was the first half of a double dip around halftime. The sequence is where the Vols truly took control of the game.
Moving The Sticks On The Ground
Vanderbilt chances of pulling off a comeback were very slim when Tennessee was facing third-and-seven with 4:47 left in the game. Tennessee was up by 13 points and was playing well defensively, but Vanderbilt did still have all three timeouts and could plausibly pull it off if they could get a stop.
They couldn’t. The Vols kept it incredibly simple, running Dylan Sampson and Tennessee’s offensive line opened up a hole and Sampson ran through it for a 20 yard gain.
Tennessee wouldn’t give the ball back to Vanderbilt the rest of the game, running the ball 10 straight times on a 57-yard, 5:54 drive to end the game.
