Tennessee, Weather Sink Vanderbilt 28-10
Knoxville, Tn.- After 1,459 consecitive days of the Vanderbilt Commdores enjoying their three game winning streak over the Tennessee Volunteers, the streak came to an end as the homestanding Vols surrendered an early lead before dominating the Commodores the remainder of the way to a 28-10 win before a less than full house of 87, 367 at Neyland Stadium.
The Vanderbilt Commodores scored first, getting an opening drive interception and 41 yard field goal to take an early advantage. From there, it was all orange as the Volunteers completed their season 7-5 while the Commodores conclude theirs at 3-8
her Vols finshed the contst Tennessee freshman running back and Memphis native, Eric Gray cruised through the Vanderbilt defense for 181 yards and two long touchdown runs in the first half alone.
Gray, who was an all-state performer and four star recruit rom Lausanne Collegiate School scored his first touchdown on a 56 yard sprint in the first quarter and topped in in the second quarter with a 96 yard dash. THe 96 yard run was the second longest in Tennessee football history, second only to a 99 yard touchdown run by Kelsey FInch in 1977 againsts Florida.
Once again the Commodores offense was non-existant, managing only 42 total yards in the first half and ending the contest with a very pedestrian
The Volunteers would take a 21-3 lead into halftime.
The third quarter might have been one of the most boring in college history as the two teams struggled to get anything going in that period.
Vanderbilt would fight back early in the final stanza when Neal found Kalijah Lipscomb in one-on-one coverage down the left sideline in the endzone for a 22 completion and score to trim the Tennessee advantage to 21-10 with 11:34 remaining.
Guarantano and his offense would answer as the quarterback connected with senior wide receiver Juwan Jennings on a 53 yard gain to the Vanderbilt 3 yard line, setting up GRay for his third score of the game.
The run of four yards capped a 7 play, 75 yard drive that consumned 3:56 seconds to push the Vols advantage to 28-10..
For Gray, that scoring run gave him 233 yards rushing, setting a true freshman rushing record at Tennessee. The previous mark of 232 was held by JamalLewis with 232 yards against Georgia in 1997.
Almost immediately after the touchdown, play was suspended by a weather delay of lightening in the area.
Following a 30 minute delay, few fans returned to the stadium for the final 7:38 as the rain continued to fall and their Vols in command of the contest.
For the game, Tennessee rolled up 417 yards in total offense with 297 of those coming on the ground, most from Gray (246) and just 120 through the air.
Once again Vanderbilt's offense struggled to move the football with any consistency, gaining just 279 total yards on the day.
Keyon Brooks led the Commodores with 70 yards rushing while Riley Neal comeplted 14 of 29 passes for 139 yards and a touchdown in his final game for Vanderbilt.
Head coach Derek Mason now must turn his attention toward recruiting to fill multiple holes that his roste will have entering nest season.
