Tennessee took a big step toward to making a bowl game in Year One of the Jeremy Pruitt era by winning its fifth game overall and second SEC game of the season by thrashing Kentucky 24-7 in Neyland Stadium Saturday.

The win came mostly as a result of Tennessee’s outstanding defensive performance against the No. 11-ranked team in the nation.

Kentucky finished the game with only 77 rushing yards overall, with 81 coming from the team’s star running back Benny Snell on 20 carries. The Wildcats were also held to six of 17 on third down conversions and were forced into three turnovers during the contest.

Following the first home SEC win of his head coaching career, Pruitt was asked what was the key to Tennessee’s win.

“Well, we were able to run the ball and we stopped them from running the ball. Didn’t give up any explosive plays, we got a few, scored some touchdowns in the red area,” Pruitt said. “The last play before the half was huge, you know? But we didn’t finish the game the right way. We turned the ball over twice, made a boneheaded decision after an interception. There’s lots of things we can work on.”

The play Pruitt referenced was a 39-yard touchdown pass from Jarrett Guarantano to Marquez Callaway as time expired to close the first half. That play gave the Vols a 17-0 lead entering halftime.

The Tennessee coach then added these comments on the performance of his defense, which featured five sacks overall, four of which came from defensive end, Darrell Taylor.

“Well, we got them in long yardages because we didn’t let them run the ball, so we were able to amp up the pass rush,” Pruitt said. “Darrell did a good job getting to the passer.”

Finally, Pruitt was asked how big the Kentucky rivalry is with him and his Tennessee players.

“We’ve been focused on what we can control, which is Tennessee, and I think our guys did a good job of that,” he concluded.

Tennessee is now 5-5 on the season and will host Missouri next weekend and travel to Nashville to face Vanderbilt to close out the season.