Tennessee defeats Vanderbilt and secures playoff berth
The Tennessee Volunteers left Nashville on Saturday with a playoff clinching win over the Vanderbilt Commodores by a score of 36-23. It couldn’t have started much worse though as Vandy’s Junior Sherrill took the opening kickoff to the house and then Dylan Sampson fumbled on Tennessee’s second play. Vandy would then capitalize on the short field and score another touchdown to make the score 14-0 less than 5 minutes into the game. However, Tennessee responded in a big way and outscored the Commodores 36-9 for the remaining 55 minutes. It would have been a loss that makes you question everything about Josh Heupel and for good reason, but luckily the Vols woke up and did what had to be done to earn their playoff spot.
The Tennessee defense made Diego Pavia look like the sawed-off, loudmouth, overrated QB he is as he could only muster 104 yards passing with 69 of those yards coming on Vandy’s garbage time touchdown drive while the Vols were in prevent. Mr. Pavia also only gained 45 yards on the ground on 11 carries with 20 of those yards coming on one play where the Vols missed a few tackles. The point is the Vols held the key to Vanderbilt’s offense in check and clearly Tim Banks had his guys ready to defend him.
The Tennessee offense had their best game of the year against an SEC opponent. 34 points, multiple chunk plays, pounded the rock in the 2nd half, and most encouraging of all is that Nico looked poised in crucial spots. Tennessee had a 3rd and 14 on their second drive of the game while trailing 14-0. Getting nothing in that spot would have been a disaster but Nico found Brazzell over the middle to get the first down, and then on the next play Nico found Thornton over the middle for a touchdown. Huge to say the least, but another impressive Nico moment was the 2-minute drill right before the half. Nico led a 10-play 96-yard touchdown drive that included two 3rd down conversions through the air and culminated with a dime to Kitselman in the back of the endzone. Dylan Sampson also had a huge day as he broke Tennessee’s single season rushing record with a 178-yard performance. All in all, the offense has rarely looked better this year and hopefully it gives that side of the ball some confidence as they head into the postseason.
The Vols are now in line to possibly host a playoff game which would be a resounding success considering all the frustration this team has caused us fans at times. However, at the end of the day 10-2 with a freshman QB in the toughest conference in the country can’t be considered anything but remarkable.