With Tennessee trailing 42-35 against South Carolina, Tennessee redshirt sophomore wide receiver Jason Croom managed to get wide open in the end zone and snagged the most important reception of his Tennessee career.
His nine-yard touchdown reception tied the game at 42 with 11 seconds left. Tennessee would go on to win the game 45-42 in overtime.
Two weeks later, Croom followed up his clutch catch with the biggest game in his college career.
Croom recorded three receptions for 87 yards and scored a touchdown in Tennessee’s 50-16 victory over the Kentucky Wildcats on Saturday night. The 87 receiving yards was a career-high for the Norcross, Georgia, native.
“Jason Croom really, really stepped up tonight,” Tennessee head coach Butch Jones said. “Jason has been doing it all year. Sometimes he may not have the catches, but he still impacts the game. I talk about impactful games and you can impact the game one way, shape, form or another, and he has been doing that.
“We have challenged him, Coach Z (Zach Azzanni) has challenged him to play big. He is 6-foot-4, 230 pounds. We have challenged him to play big and he has responded. And that is a tribute to his work ethic. He has shown great consistency in practice, and when you show consistency in practice you are going to perform on game day.”
All of Croom’s three receptions came during critical junctures in the game.
His first reception occurred when Tennessee was leading 23-3 in the middle of the second quarter. When Croom caught the ball at the line of scrimmage, he was greeted by a host of Wildcat defenders. Croom, however, churned his feet and dragged Kentucky defenders past the first down marker.
Croom’s tremendous effort on that play extended a drive that ended in a 9-yard Josh Dobbs’ touchdown run that gave the Vols a commanding 30-3 lead.
“It was a critical, critical stage of the game,” Jones said. “We thought he was short. He just kept driving and driving the pylon.”
When Kentucky scored a touchdown on its next offensive possession to cut Tennessee’s lead to 20, Croom stepped up and extinguished any sort of momentum Kentucky might have gained when he grabbed a 32-yard pass from the sophomore quarterback.
His catch set up a 21-yard Aaron Medley field goal with 14 seconds remaining in the half.
Croom outdid that reception when he turned a simple wide receiver bubble screen into a 52-yard sprint to the end zone on the Vols’ first offensive play in the second half.
“I just came out of halftime, fresh legs, just got done warming up, and I was able to make a play.” Croom said.
Tapering turnovers: Tennessee’s offense moved seamlessly up and down the field in their win against Kentucky on Saturday, amassing 511 total yards and keeping the punting unit on the sidelines for the majority of the game. Tennessee punter Matt Darr only saw the field four times on Saturday, with three of his punts coming in the fourth quarter after Jones had given the quarterback reigns to Nathan Peterman.
More impressively, Tennessee avoided turning the ball over for the first time since its season opening win against Utah State and was plus-2 in the turnover battle against the Wildcats.
“(We were) plus-2 tonight in turnover margin, and that is usually evidence of winning and losing,” Jones said.” “That is the biggest statistic, along with passing efficiency, for us.”
Jones credited Dobbs as one of the reasons Tennessee was able to take care of the football.
“I think he is doing a great job at distributing the football and making decisions with the football,” Jones said. “I believe we didn’t turn the football over, and the quarterback is the caretaker of the football. And as we talk about, that ball holds all of dreams, goal and aspirations, so he is doing a great job at distributing the ball and taking care of the of the football.”
