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Tennessee football: Five takeaways from Vols win 28-10 win vs. Vanderbilt

By Caleb Calhoun

KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE - NOVEMBER 30: Eric Gray #3 of the Tennessee Volunteers celebrates running a ninety-four yard touchdown against the Vanderbilt Commodores during the second quarter at Neyland Stadium on November 30, 2019 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by Silas Walker/Getty Images)
KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE - NOVEMBER 30: Eric Gray #3 of the Tennessee Volunteers celebrates running a ninety-four yard touchdown against the Vanderbilt Commodores during the second quarter at Neyland Stadium on November 30, 2019 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by Silas Walker/Getty Images) /
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Photo by Silas Walker/Getty Images
Photo by Silas Walker/Getty Images /

An ugly outing due to the weather resulted in Tennessee football beating the Vandy Commodores 28-10. Here’s what we learned from the Volunteers’ victory.

Two weather delays and a turnover on the first drive to fall behind 3-0 made it an ugly day for Tennessee football. But the Vols still managed to pull out a victory over the Vanderbilt Commodores on Senior Day.

Thanks to over 200 yards rushing and three touchdowns from Eric Gray, UT defeated Vandy 28-10 for its fifth straight win on the season and sixth win in seven games. They did it behind 417 yards of total offense while holding the ‘Dores to 279 yards.

With the win, Tennessee football finished the regular season 7-5 and 5-3 in the SEC, its first winning record in the conference since 2015. Vanderbilt, meanwhile, finished 3-9 and 1-7 in the SEC in Derek Mason’s second year.

The Vols ended a three-game losing streak to Vanderbilt  in the process as well. They did that despite starting the season 0-2 with two losses to Group of Five schools at home and then falling to 1-4. It has been a remarkable turnaround for Jeremy Pruitt’s second team.

This game’s kickoff was delayed half an hour due to lightning. But after kickoff, the Vols got an interception on their first drive, spotting Vandy a 14-3 lead. Two touchdown runs by Gray, one of 56 yards and one of 94 yards, along with a 47-yard drive that ended with a short pass to Dominick Wood-Anderson, put the Vols up 21-3 at halftime.

In the second half, Vanderbilt cut the lead to 21-10, but the Vols responded with a 75-yard drive in the fourth quarter to go up 28-10. That’s when the second weather delay came into play, and the teams resumed play with just under eight minutes left in the fourth.

Ending that losing streak to Vandy, securing a winning record and getting on a roll like this are all worthy of celebrating. It doesn’t matter how ugly the victory was for Rocky Top. They needed this for the sake of the program.

Now, all that’s left is for UT to see where it will go bowling. But they also clinched a spot in the top half of the conference, which is another impressive turnaround. Here are five things we learned from Tennessee football’s win against Vanderbilt.

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