Wiedmer: Jeremy Pruitt has Vols getting better by the week

Tennessee's Tim Jordan finds a hole in the Kentucky defense during the fourth quarter Saturday at Neyland Stadium.
Tennessee's Tim Jordan finds a hole in the Kentucky defense during the fourth quarter Saturday at Neyland Stadium.
photo Tennessee's Tim Jordan finds a hole in the Kentucky defense during the fourth quarter Saturday at Neyland Stadium.

KNOXVILLE - Last Monday, as he was previewing his team's upcoming game against Tennessee, Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops said of the Volunteers squad his Wildcats were favored to beat by close to a touchdown: "They're getting better and better and playing better defensively the second part of the year."

And then Stoops spoke of first-year Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt: "You see his characteristics starting to take form."

If you thought this was merely coachspeak, empty compliments meant to tamp down overconfidence among 12th-ranked Wildcats, you haven't been watching the Vols closely enough of late.

Yes, this was Kentucky that Tennessee thoroughly whipped 24-7 on Saturday, and Big Blew has now fallen 17 straight times to the Big Orange on the Vols' home soil. The Wildcats' last win at Neyland Stadium was all the way back in 1984.

photo Mark Wiedmer

But something else has been in play for weeks with Tennessee - a somewhat quiet yet largely consistent run of improvement, going all the way back to the Georgia game on the 29th afternoon of September.

The Vols lost that one 38-12 in Athens, but they had their moments, both on offense and defense. After an off week came the road upset of then-No. 21 Auburn. Hosting Alabama may have been an overall nightmare - it was a 58-21 loss - but even that came with a 14-point second quarter against a Criimson Tide defense that hasn't allowed a point since then while beating LSU and Mississippi State.

But what happened Saturday against Kentucky was arguably the Vols' highlight of the year, if for no other reason that it moves them to 5-5 for the season, which means they need no more than a split in their final two games against Missouri on Saturday and at Vanderbilt two days after Thanksgiving to become bowl eligible.

"It wasn't perfect," Pruitt said after watching his team. "But it was definitely a positive."

The positives were everywhere for the Vols, beginning with quarterback Jarrett Guarantano, who was 12-of-20 passing for 197 yards, two touchdowns and zero interceptions. That last number is especially significant because he has now gone 146 straight passes without being picked off, which breaks the program's old record of 143 set by Casey Clausen in 2003.

But if anything perfectly frames what the New Jersey native means to this program, it's what he said to Kentucky All-America candidate and fellow Garden State native Josh Allen after the Wildcats senior linebacker leveled him on a completed pass.

Said Jersey Jarrett: "There's no hit that's going to take me out."

Yet it was Guarantano teammate Darrell Taylor who did the most to take out Kentucky. The defensive end sacked Wildcats quarterback Terry Wilson four times for minus-31 yards. He also forced a fumble.

Noticing that Kentucky was attempting to stop him with only a single offensive tackle on one occasion, Taylor grinned and said, "My eyes lit up like Christmas trees."

Some might argue that Kentucky is the Christmas gift that arrives early each year for the Vols. Beginning in 1985, seven different Wildcats head football coaches have beaten Tennessee a total of twice. A Vols football win over Kentucky might trail only death, taxes and the ridiculous October arrival of tacky holiday sweaters to your favorite department store in degree of certainty.

photo Tennessee's Shy Tuttle (2) stretches to block a 30-yard field-goal attempt by Kentucky's Chance Poore during the fourth quarter Saturday in Knoxville.

But this was at least as much about Tennessee's weekly improvement under Pruitt as Kentucky's annual swoon under Stoops come November, given that the Cats are now 5-18 in the turkey month since he arrived in the Bluegrass State before the 2013 season.

It's not Pruitt only, of course. Guarantano relayed to the media what was said on the field by Kentucky players just before he threw a touchdown pass to tight end Dominick Wood-Anderson to hike the lead to 24-0 midway through the third quarter.

"They said they knew what was coming, they knew it was going to be a sweep," Guarantano said of the second-and-goal play from the 2-yard line.

Of course, if they thought that it might be a sweep, it could be because Tennessee offensive coordinator Tyson Helton had designed the play in a way that would make the Wildcats think that. Combine that with a defense that held the Wildcats, who entered having averaged 199.6 yards on the ground per game to 77 rushing yards, and you begin to get a picture of a young team competing more completely for victories than perhaps any time since Tennessee athletic director Phillip Fulmer's final SEC East champion in 2007.

Another perspective on how well Pruitt and his staff are performing 10 games into his first year on the job? Listen to Kentucky defensive back Mike Edwards, who said of the Vols' game plan: "They did a lot of things Georgia did (while beating the Wildcats 34-17 a week before). They steal a lot of things that other teams did to their opponents. I think they copied what Georgia did a little bit, and they just outplayed us."

To be sure, Missouri and Vanderbilt will pose quite different challenges than Kentucky. Both Mizzou's Drew Lock and Vandy's Kyle Shurmur are the kind of gunslinging quarterbacks who could severely test a youthful Vols secondary and relatively thin defensive line.

Regardless, Pruitt is now the only current SEC head coach to have posted two wins over ranked foes in his first season on the job.

"You look at good teams, they kind of play their best ball at the end," Pruitt said. "We're 2-0 in November."

More importantly, they're one win from a bowl game. And as Stoops advised anyone willing to listen long before this latest Vols victory unfolded, they're getting better by the week.

Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.

Upcoming Events