LEXINGTON, Ky. - Facing third-and-4 on his team's 8-yard line and needing one first down to put the game away, Tennessee offensive coordinator Jim Chaney dialed up a naked bootleg for Jarrett Guarantano.
In this day and age of dual-threat quarterbacks, the play call should have come as no surprise, right?
But considering the redshirt junior entered Saturday night's game at Kentucky with minus-132 rushing yards in his career, the call could have raised some eyebrows had it not worked. Despite showing more willingness to scramble in recent games, Guarantano has always been more comfortable in the pocket.
But in a season when the only thing to expect from the Volunteers is the unexpected, Chaney made the call and Guarantano made the play.
Ten yards later, the Vols had sealed a 17-13 win - and now they find themselves in the same position they were a year ago, 5-5 overall and coming off a win over the Wildcats. This time, though, the road they took there crossed higher peaks and lower valleys.
Who would have thought the Vols would start this season with home losses to Georgia State and BYU? The same people wouldn't have given them much of a chance against Mississippi State and South Carolina, but the Vols controlled those opponents for their first two Southeastern Conference wins this year before adding their third - against an equal number of league losses - by topping the Wildcats (4-5, 2-5).
For Tennessee, Saturday's game was a microcosm of the season: Get down early, face adversity and find a way to get hot in the end.
"Our kids didn't quit," coach Jeremy Pruitt said. "They kind of stayed the course. But, man, we made it hard on ourselves. Hard on ourselves. We're very fortunate to win the football game. But we did, and that's what matters. We need to learn from these mistakes and get them fixed going forward."
The Vols have learned from their mistakes during Pruitt's second season.
Guarantano - whose well-documented struggles led to him losing his starting job earlier this year - appears to be playing as well as he has during his Tennessee career. The defense, which had its own problems earlier this season, has allowed a total of seven second-half points the past three games. Kentucky did rush for 302 yards in the game, but 185 of those yards were accumulated before halftime, including 104 in the first quarter.
In the second half, the Wildcats had 117 yards on 31 carries. And more importantly, no points.
The end result was Tennessee's fourth win in five games, matching the program's best such stretch since the final five games of the 2016 season, and its third straight win, which hadn't happened since wins over Tennessee Tech, Kentucky and Missouri that year. That was also the last time the Vols reached bowl eligibility, but they have two chances - after this week's open date, they visit Missouri and host Vanderbilt - to get the needed sixth win this season.
"We've been losing a lot, but I think we're turning it around and we're going to make Tennessee better than we got it," said senior linebacker Darrell Taylor, who picked up his seventh sack of the season and has at least one in five of his past six games. "We're trying to get back on top where Tennessee needs to be."
And if the Vols do, what a road they took to get there.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3 or at Facebook.com/VolsUpdate.