KNOXVILLE — So I went to the Tennessee-Kentucky game, and let me tell you …

The Vols are good. Really good.

But they weren’t great on Saturday night.

The Vols accounted for 422 yards of offense against the Wildcats, nearly 150 yards off their season average. They scored 6 fewer points than their season average as well. Their placekicker missed an extra point and had a 37-yard field goal hit the upright. Their receivers dropped passes in the end zone and inside the red zone on multiple occasions.

And yet, Tennessee still beat the 19th-ranked team in the country 44-6, in a game that was never in doubt.

For all the talk last week about the Vols possibly looking past their I-75 rivals, Tennessee was squarely focused on the Wildcats.

And now, the attention of the 8-0 Vols will be placed squarely on the defending national champions from Georgia. The 8-0 Dawgs look every bit the part of the top-ranked team in the nation. Except for an uninspiring performance at Missouri, UGA has steamrolled the competition.

There’s no legitimate metric, no equation, no formula you can subscribe to that doesn’t put Tennessee and Georgia among the best 3-4 squads in the country.

Tennessee vs. Georgia: 2 undefeated teams, each at the top of its game, on a collision course to meet in Athens.

And you know what else? It has been 21 years since the Vols have played in a game this important. Twenty-one years.

You might be thinking to yourself, What about the Alabama game 2 weeks ago? Wasn’t that a huge game? Well, yes. It was one of the greatest games in the history of college football, and it marked the unofficial end to the dysfunction that plagued the Tennessee athletic department for the better part of 15 years.

And yes, the Vols did play in the 2004 and 2007 conference title games. And for a program like Tennessee that has 13 SEC championships on its resume, those games hold tremendous importance. But that 2001 SEC Championship Game loss to LSU started Tennessee on the road to mediocrity. It kept UT out of the BCS championship against that historically dominant Miami squad at the Rose Bowl, and the Vols have never been anywhere close to those heights since that fateful day at the Georgia Dome (RIP) in Atlanta.

Saturday afternoon’s meeting with the Dawgs will likely decide if the Vols will play for a conference title for the 1st time since 2007. It could also decide if Tennessee will get a spot in the College Football Playoff for the 1st time since its inception in 2014.

For the 3rd time this season, Tennessee will be getting the ESPN College Gameday treatment. It will be featured on the Saturday afternoon CBS broadcast for the 3rd time, too. Tennessee has been striving as a program to get back in the national spotlight for quite a while. And this weekend, the nation will once again see the transformation of the Vols from conference also-ran to national championship contender.

Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker has had multiple “Heisman” moments this season, the most memorable likely being when he moved the Vols 45 yards in 13 seconds to set up the game-winning FG against Alabama.

Facing Georgia in Athens will give Hooker another showcase for his talents, as he remains in the mix to become the 1st Tennessee player to win the Heisman Trophy. I know there are a lot of Volunteers fans who say that they don’t care about that award, and haven’t cared about it since Peyton Manning finished 2nd to Charles Woodson in Heisman voting in 1997.

But it still boggles the mind that Tennessee, one of the winningest programs in the sport, doesn’t have a Heisman winner of its own. Hooker could pad that resume on Saturday.

It’s going to be bedlam at Sanford Stadium. The Vols haven’t won in that building since the “Dobbnail Boot” Hail Mary in 2016. That was also the last time Tennessee has beaten Georgia.

In a season in which Tennessee has exorcised demon after demon, this weekend presents the opportunity to slay yet another tormentor, in its biggest game in decades.

And depending on what happens, UT might have even more historic battles to come.