Five Critical Moments: Tennessee Knocks Off Mississippi State | Rocky Top Insider

Tennessee football concluded its month long home stand by knocking off Mississippi State 33-14 on Saturday night, improving to 8-1 (5-1 SEC) ahead of next week’s matchup at Georgia.

Here’s five critical moments from Tennessee’s fourth consecutive win.

More From RTI: Tennessee Football Ranked Ahead of Georgia Before Critical SEC Matchup on Saturday

Opening Drive Touchdown

After four games straight of first half offensive struggles, Tennessee badly needed to capitalize on a bad Mississippi State defense and put together a complete offensive performance.

Things started out well when the Vols went 55 yards on seven plays for their first opening drive touchdown in SEC play. Tennessee even overcame adversity. After a rare assisting the runner penalty took a fourth down conversion off the board, Nico Iamaleava hit Squirrel White in stride for a 34-yard touchdown.

Tennessee not only scored on its first drive of the game but they did it by hitting a big play. That’s two areas where the Vols’ offense has struggled. It was a great start to the game.

Missed Opportunities

Despite the great start, reoccurring mistakes soon bit Tennessee’s offense. The Vols’ second drive ended with another Dylan Sampson red zone fumble.

It was Sampson’s third fumble in scoring range in the last three weeks after having not fumbled once prior to that in his college career. But the fumble soon seemed like it wouldn’t be a big deal when Boo Carter intercepted Michael Van Buren just two plays later and set Tennessee’s offense up inside the 10-yard line.

But four straight Peyton Lewis runs ended with the ball just inches short of the goal line as Tennessee failed to capitalize on the turnover. That two drive sequence largely ended Tennessee’s hope that they’d blow Mississippi State out in a cathartic offensive explosion

16-Play Touchdown Drive

If not a cathartic offensive explosion, Tennessee’s hopes of a blowout victory were back in play when Iamaleava hit Dont’e Thornton for a 73-yard touchdown to go up 14-0 early in the second quarter. But that’s when Mississippi State had its best drive of the night.

The Bulldogs ran 7:48 off the clock in a 16-play, 75-yard touchdown drive which cut Tennessee’s lead to a touchdown with just a handful of minutes to play in the first half. Michael Van Buren was great on the drive both hitting a couple big throws while also scrambling for big gains.

Mississippi State converted a third-and-eight as well as a third-and-three on top of a pair of fourth down conversion. The second fourth down conversion was a fourth-and-goal touchdown run at the one-yard line.

Double Dipping On The Same Side Of Halftime

Josh Heupel loves a good double dip around halftime. It’s one of the main reasons that Tennessee defers to the second half every time they win the coin toss.

But against Mississippi State, the Vols had a very odd back-to-back quick scores on the same side of halftime that almost served as a double dip. Tennessee first settled for a field goal in the red zone with 46 seconds left in the half after a nice drive stalled out.

Then Mississippi State went three-and-out with a pair of completions and a run out of bounds. A nice Boo Carter punt return gave Tennessee the ball in plus territory with 14 seconds to play. One Cam Seldon run and then a  Iamaleava 21-yard completion to White set the Vols up in scoring range.

Max Gilbert then connected on his first field goal of over 50 yards in his career, making a 51-yard try that gave Tennessee a 20-7 lead at halftime. The Vols capitalized on bad Mississippi State clock management to extend their lead heading into the half.

Dylan Sampson Provides Big Answer

The entire complexion of the game changed to start the second half when Gaston Moore came in at quarterback and Iamaleava was ruled out for the remainder of the game.

When Mississippi State scored a touchdown to cut Tennessee’s lead to 23-14 midway through the third quarter, it felt like the Vols may have to hold on for dear life without their starting quarterback.

Moore did some good things but it was once against Dylan Sampson and Tennessee’s rushing game that stepped up. On that ensuing drive, Sampson recorded runs of 10 yards, eight yards, six yards, four yards and finally 33 yards into the checkerboards.

It pushed Tennessee’s lead back to 16 points and gave them enough breathing room the rest of the way.