Kentucky knew Evan Berry was dangerous. On its first three kickoffs of the game, kicker Austin MacGinnis booted the ball over Berry’s head into the back of the end zone, making sure Berry had no chance to return the kick for a touchdown.

But on his fourth kickoff after Kentucky cut into Tennessee’s lead with 8:34 left in the third quarter, MacGinnis didn’t kick the ball far enough.

Berry caught the ball five yards deep in his own end zone and took off. At the 15-yard line, Tennessee’s blockers briefly opened up a seam for Berry and he blasted through it. Then, with only one man to beat, Berry’s lead blocker, Micah Abernathy, pushed MacGinnis out of the way, and Berry strode down the sideline for a TD.

With that touchdown return, Berry — the younger brother of former Tennessee All-American and current Kansas City Chiefs All-Pro safety Eric Berry — became the first Volunteers player since Willie Gault in 1980 to return three kickoffs for touchdowns in the same season.

“I just run,” Berry said after the Volunteers 52-21 win over Kentucky. “It’s kind of just a feeling. Just run to open grass. The return team does a great job of getting their leverage and just making it easy for me, to be honest. All I do is run.”

But Berry does so much more than “just run.” When he’s given a chance to return a kick, he doesn’t hesitate. Instead, he immediately flies up the field where his blockers are setting up and uses his vision finds the crease.

“On a couple of returns, the crease has been right where is should be and it has been just over shoulder width, and it’s not there until about three steps before he gets to it,” special teams coordinator Mark Elder said in an interview with the Knoxville News Sentinal. “And so, having that trust and having that faith, part of it is coming from … when you’re not running into a brick wall in practice. So, us going out and practicing well and preforming well in practice and having it work just like it should in practice — that’s where that faith grows and him believing that this is going to work.”

With faith in his blockers, Berry has become the most lethal return man in the country, leading the nation with a kickoff return average of 42.6 yards.

“I love running behind those guys,” Berry said. “They’ve got my back and I’ve got theirs.”

When Berry bursts through the crease, his straight-line speed is overwhelming and his strength and elusiveness is daunting.

On his 88-yard kickoff return against Western Carolina, Berry seemed to be bottled up at his own 35-yard line, but broke two tackles and found his way to the orange-and-white checkered end zone. And during his 96-yard, opening kickoff TD return against Arkansas, Berry stiff-armed Arkansas’s kicker as he was running down the sideline.

But for Berry, the main reason he has been successful is the work that he and his teammates have done in practice.

“Just knowing how hard we work at it every day on it, and just knowing how much my guys have my back and how much I have theirs, it doesn’t surprise me at all,” Berry said. “The confidence has always been there.”