Diego Pavia rolled out to his right on third-and-12 in Tennessee territory with 20 seconds remaining in the half. He fired it incomplete, but a rushing Jalen McMurray made contact with the passer, and a penalty flag soon landed on the grass.
“I didn’t truly see the play,” head coach Josh Heupel said. “They just said we hit him in the head.”
A roughing the passer call turned a field goal attempt into a first down, and Pavia found Tre Richardson in the corner of the end zone for the tying catch with 12 seconds remaining in the first half.
The Commodores received the ball out of the break and did not look back from there. An 11-play, 75-yard drive that spanned 6:35 ensued for Vanderbilt to take a 28-21 lead — setting up a 24-3 second-half margin.
“We talk about the middle-eight all the time,” linebacker Jeremiah Telander said. “You got to win the middle eight. Very important part of the ball game, and it comes down to assignment football and we did not do that. Misfit or whatever it was, we just did not play complete assignment football, and it showed.”
Though the second touchdown did not come until the 8:25 mark of the third quarter, the middle eight problem still persisted.
And the stats further proved that in the second half. Vanderbilt went on to score on each of its next four second-half drives, only negated by the fifth and final drive that ran the clock to the buzzer.
Tennessee, meanwhile, posted 137 total yards in the second half and mangled four total drives — one that ended in a three-and-out and two that finished with a turnover on downs. A celebratory field goal on the only other drive was the lone positive from the half.
Vanderbilt outgained on the ground 178 yards to negative six, while the Vols abandoned the run game for a total of 12 rushes in the final 30 minutes. Pavia did the work himself with 165 yards rushing on 20 attempts.
“We didn’t do a good job winning the middle eight,” quarterback Joey Aguilar said. “They went into halftime with a touchdown to tie the game. Came out at halftime, put on some points and then offensively we didn’t start fast, so they kind of picked up momentum, but they won the middle eight when we started slow and they took advantage of it.”
Tennessee’s offense slowed in part due to a long stretch away from the field — spending around 40 minutes away with the inclusion of a 20-minute halftime.
“You just got to go out,” Aguilar said. “You can only get so many opportunities in a game, and when you play a team like that that holds the ball and gets a lot off the clock. You just got to take advantage of that opportunity when you go out there. And we didn’t coming out of half. They had the ball for a little while and when we went out there, we kind of just threw and out, not executing and not being detailed to what we’re trying to accomplish in our play call.
“You just got to be ready. I mean, obviously, we’re on the sideline for a little while, but that’s why you just stand next to the heater, stand on little machines to get you going and stay ready because anything could happen. But unfortunately, we weren’t. We went out there a little slow, come out of half, and that’s just something we have to do better at.”
Defensively, the Vols were on the field for a long while. Vanderbilt won the time of possession battle 34:59 minutes to 25:01. It helped in the third quarter when the Commodores ran two scoring drives for 10:37.
That came with 133 yards across those two drives, totaling 284 yards in the second half. The defense failed to get stops when it mattered, and it mattered most across the middle-eight — where the Commodores feasted to their first win in the series since 2018.
“I feel like we just need to eliminate some of the little mistakes,” defensive back Edrees Farooq said. “And if we do that, I feel like we’ll be successful because the first half, we came out like strong, hungry. But I feel like if we just lock in the second half and not let off the gas, we’ll be good.”
Tennessee football now begins the first stage of its offseason as the Vols await their bowl destination.
