Revisiting The Last Tennessee vs Kentucky Game After a Bye
Credit: University of Tennessee Athletics
By Tucker Harlin
#7 Tennessee (6-1) hosts Kentucky (3-5) to begin the final month of the regular season in Neyland Stadium. Kickoff is at 7:45 p.m. ET and the game airs on SEC Network.
The Vols are coming off a bye week ahead of this game. Since this was Tennessee’s second bye, I’m not going to run through every result in the Heupel era in this piece.
But I will remind you of what happened the last time these two squared off in Tennessee’s week after the bye back in 2021.
Unlike this current Kentucky team, the 2021 team started the season off 6-0. The combination of Will Levis and Wan’Dale Robinson helped pull off close wins against Missouri, South Carolina, and Florida in addition to a bad LSU team.
However, the middle of October presented a rough patch.
The Wildcats were bullied in a 30-13 loss at Georgia. The Bulldogs won a national title that season, so that isn’t a loss to get bent out of shape over.
But a 31-17 loss to a middling Mississippi State in a game in which you turn the ball over four times is less than ideal.
The Vols had to travel to Lexington the next weekend, a place where it hadn’t struggled historically. Tennessee had lost 34-7 to the Wildcats in Knoxville in front of a 25% capacity crowd in 2020, a game that sat in the back of the minds of Vol fans on November 6.
Josh Heupel quickly made fans forget about those offensive woes. Hendon Hooker and JaVonta Payton connected for 75 yards and a touchdown on the first play of the game.
The difference in time of possession in this game was just silly. Kentucky had the ball for 46:02 and didn’t punt while the longest Tennessee scoring drive of the game lasted 2:43, the majority of those drives lasting close to a minute or less.
Once Jabari Small scored a touchdown to put the Vols up 31-28, they never trailed again. Will Levis was picked off on this play by Alontae Taylor to effectively put the game out of reach.
We are only 56 days away from SEC football!
— CousinShane (@BigOrangeVolz) July 4, 2024
This was a back and forth game between Tennessee and Kentucky until Alontae Taylor’s 56 yard pick six.
Taylor’s statement that week- “You don’t lose to Kentucky.” pic.twitter.com/3JriE6xBmD
The 45-42 win over Kentucky was one Tennessee fans expected to win, but it was still important in advancing Josh Heupel’s likability among the fan base.
The Vols had dropped a pair of tough losses to Ole Miss and Alabama in the previous two games. A win virtually guaranteed a bowl in Year 1 with cupcake matchups against South Alabama and Vanderbilt and allowed Heupel to play with house money against Georgia.
You have to start somewhere, and this victory was paramount in the start of Heupel’s tenure.
