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Suddenly, momentum is in Tennessee’s favor.
A team that was left for dead a month ago following back-to-back losses to Florida and Arkansas, then lost a fourth-quarter lead two weeks ago at Alabama, woke up Sunday morning with a bright future.
The Vols (4-4, 2-3) trailed early Saturday night after Kentucky’s defense returned a first-quarter fumble from QB Joshua Dobbs 77 yards for a touchdown. And as coach Butch Jones has said much of the season, they responded from adversity with a 52-21 victory.
“I thought that was a complete performance,” he said in the postgame press conference. “No one panicked after the early big play, and we got the job done. We made big plays.”
On a game week where the team stayed in Cincinnati because of the Breeders’ Cup in Lexington, Ky., Tennessee came back from deficits twice. Down 14-10, the Vols outscored the Wildcats 42-7 in the next 15 minutes.
“We were just controlling what we could control,” Dobbs said. “We can’t really control the bus ride, where we stay, all that stuff. But we can control how we come out and play football, and we did that well tonight.”
Added RB Alvin Kamara, “Just having to stay focused this whole time really shows how mature we are as a team.”
Nearly every Tennessee touchdown was scored on a big play. Five of them were at least 28 yards, but the two that snuffed any Kentucky comeback hopes were the back-to-back special teams touchdowns of 100 and 84 yards, respectively, in the third quarter.
The Vols clamped down defensively on Kentucky, and rang up 482 yards, punctuated with a 28-point third quarter. They had historic special teams success with a kickoff and punt return for a touchdown. Evan Berry scored his third kickoff return TD of the season. Willie Gault was the last Vol to do that in 1980.
Dobbs showed his versatility with a 75-yard touchdown pass to WR Josh Malone, a 28-yard TD run of his own and a perfectly executed screen pass touchdown to RB Jalen Hurd.
With a home game against South Carolina on tap, the Vols have their fans thinking eight wins and a five-game winning streak to close the season against North Texas, at Missouri and Vanderbilt. They will likely be favored to win each of those games.
“Everything is positive in our football team,” Jones said. “We talk about resiliency and staying focused. You can see the bounce in our step.”
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
