It wasn’t easy, and maybe there are some concerns going forward, but at the end of the day, Tennessee Football is 7-1 and 4-1 in the SEC after beating the Kentucky Wildcats 28-18 Saturday night. The Vols are also firmly in the College Football Playoff race as a top 10 team with the first round of official rankings set to drop on Tuesday.
Despite UK being seriously banged up, Rocky Top could not figure out a way to pull away in this one. Switching from Brock VandarGriff to Gavin Wimsatt hurt, but at the same time, Josh Heupel’s team made far too many mistakes once again, which has been a theme for the program for a while now.
That doesn’t mean there weren’t any positives, though. Heck, the Georgia Bulldogs only beat this team 13-12, albeit on the road against a much healthier version of them. Vol fans should take the win whenever they can get it, even if it’s ugly. Here are five things we learned from Tennessee Football holding off Kentucky Saturday night.
5. Second half Tennessee Football strikes again
For the fourth straight game, the Vols came back in the third quarter after trailing a team in the first half. They actually came back and won the game for the third straight time. Either way, though, ever since they came off their first bye and faced the Arkansas Razorbacks, they have been unable to generate any momentum early in games.
Now, this team is a bit different in that it actually scored in the first half, breaking a drought that went back to the Oklahoma Sooners. Perhaps that’s a sign that the program is actually turning a corner. At the same time, the end-of-half offense, a hallmark of what Josh Heupel does, was a hideous display of clock mismanagement and could have proven costly.
Simply put, Tennessee Football continues to struggle offensively, and the Vols are at their worst in the first quarter, where they were held without for the fourth straight game. Coming off a bye, that is somewhat concerning, even if Heupel’s team has a different identity this year.
Takeaway #2: Rush defense
