The Tennessee Volunteers aren’t at the elite level in the SEC. That platform can only support so much weight, and right now Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia and LSU are up there, waving to their adoring fans from above. But this season the Vols showed signs that they are a few steps closer to joining them.
Look at what happened in the Gator Bowl. The Vols yet again struggled to score in the red zone. They turned the football over multiple times. They were flagged for costly penalties. They trailed Indiana by 13 points with under 5 minutes remaining.
And they found a way to win.
That brought back memories of the good times. Back when Phillip Fulmer was Tennessee’s head coach (1993-2008), there was often criticism about the conservative nature of play-calling, both on offense and on defense. But those teams also knew how to close out games and overcome adversity on days in which they didn’t play their best football.
There’s something to be said for a group that is mentally tough. The Derek Dooley (2010-2012) and Butch Jones (2013-2017) teams were not mentally tough. During crunch time, those teams didn’t play to win. They played not to lose. In particular, Jones’ 2015 and 2016 teams had more than enough talent to win the SEC East in each season. Yet rarely under Dooley or Jones did the Vols get the big stop, pick up the game clinching 1st down, make the big kick or come up with the correct play call.
During the second half of the 2019 season, Tennessee showed their fans that they would not shy away from such stressful situations. Against Kentucky, the Vols’ defense stood tall, stopping Kentucky inside the 2-yard line in the final 2 minutes. Then the offense was able to move the chains to seal the deal. Against Missouri, when the Vols needed to get a couple of 1st downs late in the game, they did so. Those were games they could have easily lost, but they didn’t play or coach scared.
At the end of the Gator Bowl, some over-coaching and an easily avoidable penalty forced the Vols to punt the football back to Indiana with a minute to go, when Tennessee’s worst-case scenario scenario should have bled the clock down to around 30 seconds. Then, the Hoosiers drove within about 10 yards of field-goal range with time remaining. These situations led to a Tennessee loss in the recent past. But the coaches corrected the mistake of rushing only 3 men early in that drive, bringing pressure on Hoosiers quarterback Peyton Ramsey. The Vols forced a turnover on downs, and won their 8th game of the season.
In the first 2 years of the Derek Dooley era, Tennessee went 11-14 with a bowl game loss. In the first 2 years of the Butch Jones era, the Vols were 12-13 with a bowl game victory. In the first 2 years of the Jeremy Pruitt era, UT had a 13-12 record, with a bowl game victory.
From a purely numbers point of view, you can see the marginal improvement. When watching the way the Pruitt teams play, the eye test has to give Vols fans even more reason to feel good about the direction of the program, especially after the 1-4 start to the 2019 season.
The Vols closed with 6 consecutive wins. They owned November, as Fulmer almost always did.
“We owned who we were and worked hard to improve,” Pruitt told reporters after the Gator Bowl. “I think that says a whole lot about our assistant coaches, everybody associated in our program, and the players on our team. You know, no quitters on that team.”
The next step that the Vols need to take will be to put those quality performances together against the elite teams on their schedule. The wins over nationally-ranked Auburn and Kentucky in 2018 were not matched with positive efforts against other SEC foes. And as encouraging as the season-ending 6-game winning streak was this year, none of those victories came against top conference opponents. In fact, in Tennessee’s 6 combined games against Alabama, Florida and Georgia under Pruitt, they’ve been outscored 255-83. Only the Bama game this season was competitive into the 4th quarter.
The 2019 season was successful for Tennessee football, but they have more work to do. Will the Vols figure out a way to hang with the best in the conference in 2020?
We’ll find out in about 8 months.
Mark Nagi has covered Tennessee athletics for over 20 years. He is the author of “Decade of Dysfunction,” an in-depth look at all that led to the crazy coaching search of 2017 at Tennessee. The book is available on Amazon.
