Tennessee football: Kentucky Wildcats easily Vols’ most quality win of 2019

Going to Lexington to beat the Kentucky Wildcats was impressive for Tennessee football. UK is easily the UT Volunteers’ most quality win of the season.

Nothing turned the corner for Tennessee football this season like their 20-10 win over the Mississippi State Bulldogs. At the time, the Vols were 1-4 and winless against an FBS program on the year. But there’s no doubt that the Kentucky Wildcats are their best win of Jeremy Pruitt’s second season, at least for now.

When breaking down the best win, we can eliminate a few. The Chattanooga Mocs are an FCS team, so they’re out. Although the UAB Blazers have the best record of anybody the Vols beat, they haven’t beaten anybody with a winning record this year

That leaves Mississippi State and the South Carolina Gamecocks. Sure, both teams completely controlled the game with Kentucky when the schools went head-to-head earlier in the year. South Carolina, however, had the game in Columbia and had to play UT in Knoxville.

Also, S.C. was severely banged up when meeting with UT and fully healthy when they played Kentucky. Their injuries continued to show with their loss to the Appalachian State Mountaineers Saturday. This isn’t the team that beat the Georgia Bulldogs on the road two weeks before losing to UT.

So then we have Mississippi State. Like Kentucky, MSU is currently 4-5, and like South Carolina, MSU beat Kentucky. Both MSU and Kentucky played the Vols coming off a bye, and Joe Moorhead’s team plays in the SEC West and had a winning record when they met UT in Knoxville.

Even taking all of that into account, though, Kentucky was a more impressive win. The fact of the matter is Tennessee football beat MSU in a noon game Saturday in front of their home audience. MSU’s only road win to this point is over the Arkansas Razorbacks, which is not impressive. They were at home when they beat the Wildcats.

Meanwhile, this game was at Kentucky. Just like Mississippi State, Kentucky is a young team with a very good head coach who is much better at home than on the road. Despite their 4-5 record, three of their losses are on the road.

UK’s only other home loss before Saturday night was to the Florida Gators, a top 10 caliber team that made a quarterback switch midway through and came back from 21-10 down to win in the second half. Mark Stoops’s team clearly should have won this game. So that’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Meanwhile, Kentucky was heavily focused on Tennessee football. They looked like a much better team than they did when Mississippi State played them, so the Wildcats were much less likely to overlook them. That it was a rivalry game against a team that they hate the most made it even more likely they would not overlook the Vols.

So given the circumstances, Kentucky was always going to be a much tougher game. But then you have to look at how the teams will finish. Mississippi State still has to face the Alabama Crimson Tide, so their best-case scenario is to finish the season 6-6.

Kentucky’s got three games left against the Vanderbilt Commodores, UT Martin and Louisville Cardinals, and only Vandy is on the road. So they are almost certain to finish 6-6 and could definitely finish 7-5.

Simply put, Tennessee football faced Kentucky under more difficult circumstances than any other opponent they beat, and the Wildcats have the best chance at a strong finish. That they won the game after falling behind 13-0 only makes it more impressive.