Vol Nation turned on players and Tennessee football as a team earlier this year. But the Volunteers have proven to be the comeback kids.
There aren’t many stories as heartwarming as the one surrounding Tennessee football this year. On a glorious night in Lexington, the Vols did what they always do, which is beat the Kentucky Wildcats. But the win was symbolic of how they are back from the dead.
Earlier in the season, these guys were completely written off. Two losses at home to Group of Five programs had this team at 0-2 and put going 1-11 on the table. Jarrett Guarantano was done after he lost his starting position coming off the Vols’ last bye week, in which they were 1-3.
Once they fell to 1-4, they were clearly done. Five games later, though, they are on a three-game winning streak, their first of the Jeremy Pruitt era, and have won four of five, needing to come from behind to win two of their games. This was the second game they needed to come from behind to win, and it’s their first comeback down by more than two scores in the Pruitt era.
That they did it against the Kentucky Wildcats, a team known for elite defense, and with the quarterback they benched earlier in the year in Guarantano only further shows just how much of a corner this team has turned. Tennessee football is a team of comeback kids, and the comeback to beat Kentucky was just symbolic of that.
Guarantano is a comeback kid by delivering the Vols all four of these victories despite starting in none of them. Doing it on the road against a defensive team coming off a bye was just another major step for him.
Nigel Warrior is a comeback kid as well. Remember, he had the major defensive laps early that allowed the BYU Cougars to tie the game up against UT and win in regulation. He also struggled to contain the Georgia State Panthers offense. But he had his fourth pick of the season on Saturday and helped shut down the offense that Lynn Bowden Jr. was trying to run.
Daniel Bituli is a comeback kid after missing the first two games due to injury and being the best player on the field. The trenches are made up of comeback kids after both sides struggled severely early on in the season. And Pruitt is a comeback coach after he was written off early this year.
Thanks to all of these comeback kids and the resiliency they showed, they never panicked when down 13-0 Saturday, and they held firm when their defense needed multiple stops late. So there’s just no way to overstate all the things they overcame mentally.
Now, it would be a shock for Tennessee football to not reach a bowl game. At 5-5 heading into their bye, they either have to beat the Missouri Tigers on the road or a reeling Vanderbilt Commodores team at home.
They may have a chance to beat both teams given the way all three of them are playing at this moment. Eight wins could truly be on the table for Pruitt’s second team. That’s an incredible position to be in after where they started.