Vols defeat Vanderbilt 28-10 to complete regular season turnaround
The intrastate rivalry between Vanderbilt and Tennessee was a mess at Neyland Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
Two stadium-clearing weather events postponed kickoff 28 minutes on Senior Night in Knoxville, but it took just 40 seconds for each team to have negative offensive plays in what would be a sloppy and sluggish first quarter.
Tennessee quarterback Jarrett GuaranTANo initiated the exchange deep in his own territory when freshman corner Jaylen Mahoney gnarfulled junior receiver Josh Palmer to the ground and grabbed a pick on the Vols first drive. The ensuing play found two Tennessee helmets rolling between the hashes and Alontae Taylor ripping the ball away from Vandy’s Ke’Shawn Vaughn. Penalties from both teams negated the play, but Vaughn was injured on the play and was out the rest of the drive. Vandy only managed 8 yards on the drive and took the early 3-0 lead with a field goal.
Vanderbilt (3-9, 1-7) would take over in Tennessee (7-5, 5-3) territory for the second time in the game’s first six minutes with 9:05 to go in the opening frame. The Dores has a screen set up with room but UT’s Shawn Shamburger would have nothing of it and made a brilliant open field play that otherwise would have put Vandy in field goal range, if not the endzone. The drive went backwards from there and the Vols again received the ball around the leftover imprint where Garth Brooks’ stage stood last Saturday.
Tim Jordan pushed the Vols towards midfield with a few gritty rushes and Jauan Jennings caught a slant for a first down before future household name Eric Gray scored the first rushing touchdown of his career from 56 yards away. With 3:04 to go in the longest first quarter in recent memory, the Vols led 7-3.
Four minutes into the second frame, Dom Wood-Anderson had perhaps the best drive of his Tennessee career. It started when Guaratano shuffled an improvised dish to DWA that resulted in 14 yards, a brutal steamrolling of a Vandy defender and a retaliatory penalty that moved the ball to the 6. Wood Anderson would score the first TD of his senior season on the next play.
Gray would really get it moving on UT’s next drive. The aforementioned star-in-making went up the gut for a 94-yard score on the drive’s first play. It was the second longest run in UT history, behind only Kelsey Finch’s 99-yard dash against Florida in 1977. On occasion, the offensive line opened up six-yard-wide gaps for Gray to run behind. The Vols mid-to-late season resurgence has occurred with the help of inspired play from the O-line and it deserves more credit than it has gotten as a unit. Gray would go over 200 yards with a 16-yard run with 12 and a half minutes to play in the third and finish the game with 246 yards.
Kalija Lipscomb caught a 22-yard touchdown from Riley Neal with 11:34 in the game for the Dores to tighten the score to 21-10 but Gray answered with his third TD of the game from four yards out. With the run, he broke the Tennessee true freshman rushing record, previously held by Jamal Lewis. Lewis had 232 yards against Georgia in 1997 and ended up being pretty good. Gray has a chance to be pretty good, too. Since he chewed up 25 carries, by far the most in his young career, Offensive Coordinator Jim Chaney didn’t ask Guarantano to throw the ball often in the second half. As a result, Wood Anderson led the Vols in receptions with three and Jennings led in receiving yards with 56.
Another weather delay struck with just 7:38 left in the game. Everyone in attendance was thrilled. (satire)
As the radar sprayed across the jumbo tron, the usually bountiful allotment of free ice cream in the press box reached dangerously low levels. People pondered what first year head coach Jeremy Pruitt might say about the stoppages after the game. “Well first of all, we gotta get better on these weather delays, aight?” In fairness to those in charge, it should be mentioned that the delays were handled with precision by authorities and were about as smooth as these things go nowadays. The same can be said for the field crew that turned over the field from a concert with 85,000 people to a football game in one week’s time.
After a 39-minute delay, the teams took the field to finish it out. The last delay provided a last-ditch effort to turn this contest around for Derek Mason and the rest of the Vandy staff, but it wasn’t enough.
It was the final game of the season for the Commodores. The Vols, however, are looking at a new beginning. Tennessee will return to postseason play and should wind up in Jacksonville for the Gator Bowl, though projections differ wildly in terms of a destination. If this season has proved anything, it’s that the Vol fan is a passionate and stubborn one, willing to show even after a pair of the worst losses in program history. Whether Tennessee ends up in Charlotte (Belk Bowl), Nashville (Music City), Memphis (Liberty), Shreveport (Independence) or Jacksonville, the fans on Rocky Top will travel.
