KNOXVILLE – If Tennessee is going to continue its up-and-down, inconsistent football season beyond this Saturday, it’s going to have to figure out a way to defeat a program that’s had its number in recent seasons.
But based off its last few performances, Tennessee is due for an “up” game.
The Volunteers (5-6, 2-5 Southeastern Conference) face Vanderbilt (5-6, 2-5) Saturday, with both teams’ postseason chances likely on the line in the contest in Nashville. The winner will achieve bowl eligibility, with the loser’s season likely done.
The Commodores have won two straight games in the series and four of the last six, although the Vols had won 29 of the previous 30.
The bowl situation is something that’s foreign to first-year Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt, who in his time with Georgia, Florida State and Alabama never quite had to worry about postseason eligibility.
“I talked about it to our staff this morning,” Pruitt said Monday. “This is probably the first time in a long time for me that early on in the season we weren’t participating or playing for playoff implications or a championship in the league. I said before, this game means a whole lot to a whole lot of people, and probably since the Florida loss or the Georgia loss, we’ve been playing for pride. To me, you can talk about winning a championship or whatever, but pride is about as important as it gets.”
Needing to conjure up that sort of effort shouldn’t be hard this week against the Commodores, who after the 45-34 win in 2016 celebrated and danced all over the field. That loss prevented the Vols from a likely Sugar Bowl appearance and relegated them back to Nashville for the Music City Bowl, where they defeated Nebraska to finish 9-4.
Offensive lineman Marcus Tatum remembers watching the scene.
“It was embarrassing,” Tatum recalled Monday. “We don’t want to feel that feeling again.”
The last month or so has yielded performances with differing results. The inconsistency dates back to the high on Oct. 13, when the Vols defeated Auburn 30-24 in Jordan-Hare Stadium. That became a quick return to reality when Alabama went to Knoxville and was up 28-0 12 minutes into the game, ultimately winning 58-21. The Vols played better against South Carolina and had chances to win, falling 27-24 on a field goal in the final minutes, and some of that carried over into the Charlotte game, where they had a lackluster effort yet pulled out a 14-3 win.
The “good” Vols came back a week later and put together their best performance of the season, with 412 yards of total offense in a 24-7 win over Kentucky. Tennessee held the Wildcats to 262 yards of total offense – 77 on the ground against one of the league’s premier rushing offenses – but couldn’t continue that momentum last Saturday, giving up 484 yards in the 33-point loss to Missouri.
“It seems like every time we take a step forward, we take a step backwards in terms of execution,” defensive back Baylen Buchanan said. “Each week is its own week, so I feel like one thing we lack is consistency in our execution; just because you play good one week doesn’t mean it’s going to carry over to the next one.
“We’re going to have to prepare the right way. We fight, but we have to know what to do and do it all the time like Coach Pruitt preaches.”
Injury update
Pruitt said at his Monday news conference that quarterback Jarrett Guarantano and receiver Marquez Callaway are considered “day-to-day” for the Vols. Guarantano suffered a head injury on the first possession against and played one more series before going into the locker room. Callaway suffered a chest injury while being tackled on a punt return in the third quarter. He had a pair of catches for 98 yards in the loss.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.