KNOXVILLE — The last-second loss to Florida in The Swamp is a devastating outcome, but it does not derail Tennessee’s entire season.

Although there were questions regarding Tennessee’s offensive play-calling against the Gators, the miscues could be a springboard in forming an offensive identity good enough to make an SEC East championship run.

That offensive identity is centered on running back John Kelly.

The junior leads the Vols and ranks 11th in the nation with 349 rushing yards. Kelly has five rushing touchdowns, tied for the most in the SEC and fifth nationally.

Kelly is also the leading receiver on Team 121 through three games with 16 receptions. He has 540 total yards, which ranks sixth nationally.

The Vols can turn things around this season if they make Kelly even more of a focal point. He definitely would not back down from the challenge.

“When you’re a running back, you don’t want to get tackled, so I’m doing everything I can not to get tackled,” Kelly said. “Just trying to impose my will on people when I’m running the ball. …  That’s really just where it comes from.”

First-year offensive coordinator Larry Scott reverently calls Kelly “a football player.”

“That’s the ultimate compliment that you can give to a guy that you’re coaching and are around every day,” Scott said. “He’s prepared, he’s competitive, he wants to win, and you can’t have enough of those guys on your football team.”

As a former offensive lineman at South Florida, Scott understands the importance of the line being in sync with players in the backfield.

Scott says the group up front impacts play-calling in every game.

“We’ve done a really good job with all the moving pieces we’ve had to move around and shake up from week to week, all the way through camp, and a lot of times right up until we’re getting ready to go out on the field,” he said.

“These guys have done a really good job. I think it’s just going to be a continuing scroll with that group as we continue to move forward and put the right pieces together, because there’s going to be movement. … We’re going to have to be able to play some guys at different places at different times.”

Kelly is getting accustomed to running behind true freshman Trey Smith, who has made an immediate impact.

“He’s a fierce competitor and he’s dominant,” Kelly said of Smith. “He wants to try to dominate his guy every chance he gets. I definitely love that about Trey’s game … that he wants to dominate his player. That’s really how I try to run the ball as well, but with Trey having that big body, it’s evident and you can see it when he does it.”

Smith feeds off Kelly’s in-game production.

“JK (John Kelly) gets me hyped in games just by the way he plays, the violence with which he plays, it really motivates me,” Smith said.

“There are times when I just look at John and I’m like ‘wow.’ He was running over people, he’s a full-contact back, and that’s what I really love about him.”

Smith is the first to tell you that if Kelly is going to run that hard then putting in extra effort on his end comes easy.

A mentality of destroying people and feeding off one another filters down from first-year offensive line coach Walt Wells.

“Coach Wells talks about how we have the same mentality at times to sort of destroy people,” Smith said. “So I really learn that from him.”

Kelly can be the driver of the offense to lead Tennessee to Atlanta as SEC East champions if he can stay healthy and receive more touches.

Kelly has not had more than 25 touches in a game this season, a number that appears to be a ceiling from Butch Jones. Kelly had five receptions against both Georgia Tech and Indiana State, and six at Florida. Bulking up the workload by adding a few more runs for Kelly could give the Volunteers’ offense a more definitive identity going forward.