The Tennessee football Volunteers look amazing in the clutch.
On Saturday, Tennessee football once again needed a fourth quarter touchdown and a defensive stand for a win away from home. Jarrett Guarantano delivered with a touchdown pass, and the Vols held on. Dating back to last year, it was their fourth one-score win away from home in their last five games.
This has been the story of the Vols’ seven-game winning streaks. They find ways to win late in games. Even in last year’s blowout win against South Carolina, when this winning streak started, they were trailing at halftime. When it came to facing teams on the road, however, the Vols have managed to make things much more gut-wrenching.
Let’s take you back to last November. Tennessee football is on its first two-game winning streak of the season after winning its homecoming game against the UAB Blazers, a blowout win largely thanks to Bryce Thompson’s three interceptions.
At that point, the Vols were 4-5, roaring back from a 1-4 start. However, they had two road games up next, the Kentucky Wildcats and the Missouri Tigers. UK was looking red-hot with Lynn Bowden Jr. at quarterback, and Mizzou was undefeated at home. Rocky Top had not yet won a road game that season.
Assuming they would beat the Vanderbilt Commodores at the end of the year, the Vols would have to steal one of these games on the road to get to six wins, a great turnaround after two home losses to Group of Five schools to open the season. They won both.
UT fell behind 13-0 at Kentucky, and Jarrett Guarantano came off the bench with the team down 13-3 at halftime. He led two touchdown drives and then had a game-clinching run on first down, right after the Vols’ defense got a goal-line stop, to preserve a 17-13 win.
After earning his starting job back the next game, Guarantano threw for over 400 yards, and the Vols held on for a 24-20 win. It got them to 6-5, shockingly clinching a bowl game. They then blew out Vandy to get to 7-5.
Speaking of the bowl game, we know the story of Guarantano getting benched with his team trailing the Indiana Hoosiers 22-9. Then he came back onto the field, got red-hot in the fourth quarter and led an epic comeback thanks in large part to Eric Gray, who recovered a key onside kick and scored the game-winning touchdown. UT won 23-22 to finish an improbable 8-5.
They followed all of that up with another heart-stopping win on Saturday to open this season. It’s hard to know what Jeremy Pruitt has instilled in these guys, but what’s clear is that when things get tight in a game with lots riding on it, they manage to step up.
Guarantano can struggle with accuracy the whole day. When it’s time to make a play in the fourth quarter, he’ll do it. The defense consistently gets fourth quarter stops when it is most desperate, and the Vols keep escaping.
It could not be more clear that the mentality of this program has changed. Don’t forget the blown coverage in the secondary last year against the BYU Cougars. Those days appear to be long gone. Can Tennessee football continue this success? That remains to be seen, but on Saturday, in a toss-up game with lots to lose, they delivered in the clutch once again away from Knoxville.