Vols Out-Physical #11 Kentucky In Big SEC Win

The visitors said it best. The Vols were tougher than the No. 11-ranked Wildcats and that's why Tennessee picked up its 17th consecutive victory over Kentucky at Neyland Stadium on Saturday night.

"They played more physical than us definitely… they just outplayed us," UK senior safety Mike Edwards said.

No Vol played more physical than redshirt junior outside linebacker Darrell Taylor in the 24-7 win.

The Waverly, Va., native finished with four sacks, a forced fumble and seven total tackles. No player in the country has had a game with more sacks this season than Taylor.

Taylor was named the ADT Defensive Player of the Week by CBS Sports following the performance.

"All week we've been stressing not letting the quarterback get out of the pocket, and I think the interior guys did an awesome job of pushing the pocket so the edge guys could get around the edge and make sacks and make plays," Taylor said. "That's what we stressed all week and it turned out good for us in the game."

The Vols held Kentucky to only 77 rushing yards – their second-lowest of the season, while holding the SEC's leading rusher, Benny Snell, to 81 yards on 20 carries.

The Vols stopped the run, took an early lead and forced Kentucky to pass the ball.

"Early in the game, they had a lot of third-and-longs," Tennessee head coach Jeremy Pruitt said. "I don't know how many there were, but there were several of them that were more than 10 yards, so it gives you an advantage if you're going to be a pass-rush guy."

While Taylor has shown flashes of dominance this season – he had three sacks and two forced fumbles at Georgia earlier this season – it was actually Kentucky's Josh Allen, who was billed as the game's top edge rusher.

Allen entered the game with an SEC-best 10 sacks. He got one sack against the Vols, but Tennessee's offensive line shut down Allen for the most part, allowing UT to hold an impressive 412 to 262 edge in total yards.

It was Taylor who wound up as the star of the game and played like an All-American, lining up with his hand in the dirt in four-man fronts more than usual.

"I've been working a lot on get offs with my hand down and it's been working for me," Taylor said.

His sacks were timely, too. He strip-sacked Kentucky quarterback Terry Wilson with the Wildcats driving into Tennessee territory – at the Vols' 31-yard line – with just under 10 minutes remaining in the game. He thwarted Kentucky's next drive, too, sacking Wilson for a 13-yard loss to force a 2nd-and-23.

Taylor will look to channel his dominant performances against Kentucky and Georgia for the final two weeks of the regular season with bowl eligibility and bragging rights on the line. Tennessee hosts Missouri at 3:30 p.m. next week and caps the regular season at Vanderbilt.

"I think it's just my coaches staying on me about not running past the quarterback or not letting the quarterback get of out of the pocket," Taylor said. "I think we did a great job this weekend. Our coaches stressed it and it showed in the game."

Overall, it was the Tennessee defense's finest performance of the season, and it came a week after allowing only three points to Charlotte.

"This was far and away the most complete game that our guys have played," Pruitt said. "I thought our staff did a fantastic job… I thought for the first time, we had a little bit of physicality for the entire game. It wasn't perfect, but it was definitely very positive."

Hail Mary TD Carries Momentum into the Second Half
Holding a 10-0 lead and getting the ball back to start the second half, Tennessee started its final drive from its own 28 with 1:00 on the clock in the second quarter. The Vols could've ran the clock out, but Ty Chandler's 14-yard scamper on third-and-8 gave the Big Orange an opportunity to pad its lead with 13 second left before the break.

"That was a big play," Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops said. "It led to seven points. That was a big, big play for us. That one… we'll be kicking ourselves for a while with the call that we made. That set up the seven [points], and that's kind of like a punch in the gut - when you give up one of those Hail Mary's at the end of the half there. That's a tough one to come back from."

After a timeout, quarterback Jarrett Guarantano found wide receiver Marquez Callaway for a 17-yard catch down the sideline to set up the last-second heave from the UK 39-yard line with six seconds left in the half.

Guarantano evaded a tackle, stepped up in the pocket and zipped a dart to the end zone, where a group of Vols and Wildcats were bunched up. Callaway leapt in front of the pack to catch his first touchdown of the season and give the Vols a 17-0 halftime lead.

"I thought Jarrett did a good job evading a little bit of rush there," Pruitt said. "He stepped up in the pocket and made a good throw to give us a chance and Marquez went up and got it."
 
Jauan Jennings, who caught a game-winning Hail Mary from Josh Dobbs at Georgia two years ago, appeared in position to catch the touchdown before Callaway came down with the ball.  

"If I would've dropped it he probably would've been mad, but since I caught it he was happy for me," Callaway said with a smile after the game. "We are all supposed to go to certain spots, and by the time I got there I just saw the ball and they want us to attack it so that's what I did."

Guarantano finished with two touchdowns, 197 yards passing and no interceptions in the game.  

"We went up 17-0 going into halftime (so) it was a big momentum play," he said. "There is a spot we know to throw to and I got a little pressure and I was able to step up because the guys made a good pocket for me, and I was able to throw it into the center and they made a play."