Never was an end to a season more fitting than how Tennessee football beat Indiana

Blake Toppmeyer
Knoxville News Sentinel

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — How else was this Tennessee football season going to end?

This is the season that started with the worst loss in the modern era of Vols football. Then came a stunning double-overtime defeat. A 2-5 start got offset by a six-game winning streak. That streak included a triumphant goal-line stand in Lexington.

A Vols player made TMZ headlines before getting kicked off the team. Another player who had been kicked off the team by a previous coaching staff before getting reinstated became the team’s leader and star.

Four players started at quarterback, including a veteran who lost the job, regained it, only to struggle again.

After all that, the Vols were going to go quietly into the night and conclude a wild season with an uneventful thud in the Gator Bowl?

Never a chance.

If Indiana felt comfortable with a two-score lead in the fourth quarter Thursday night, then the Hoosiers don’t know this Tennessee team.

Embattled quarterback Jarrett Guarantano saved his best work for the fourth quarter. Paxton Brooks executed an onside kick that will be remembered by Vols fans for a long time. Freshman running back Eric Gray saw his star turn.

The Vols stormed back for a 23-22 victory.

Never was there a more fitting end to a season.

“That is just us,” linebacker Henry To’o To’o said. “That was this 2019 team. We never let up. We never gave up. Every time things got hard, we put on more steam.”

Let’s make sure this is clear: Games against Georgia State and BYU notwithstanding, the first half of Tennessee’s schedule was much more challenging than the second half. So this season always was set up to finish better than it started.

But that’s not all that was at play.

A senior class showed needed leadership in challenging times and also finished their careers playing at their peak. Freshmen grew up. Perhaps a head coach did, too.

Asked how he grew this season, coach Jeremy Pruitt said he learned he doesn’t know everything, so he better trust his coordinators and assistants to do the jobs they’re hired to do.

That’s a lesson a lot of first-time head coaches learn in their second season.

Pruitt made the call of the season when he elected to go for an onside kick trailing by a touchdown with 4 minutes, 21 seconds remaining. Most coaches would kick it deep in that situation and let a defense that carried the water during Tennessee’s resurgent finish go back to work.

That’s what Indiana coach Tom Allen expected. He didn’t put his onside return unit on the field, expecting a deep kickoff.

But Pruitt sees his coaching career – he was a high school assistant as recently as 2006 – as a long shot that hit pay dirt. And he coaches with that mentality. Hence, the onside kick.

“I'm kind of a go-for-it guy,” Pruitt said.

Pruitt has a challenge ahead in 2020.

The schedule will be tougher, featuring a road date at Oklahoma. He must replace his best defensive players – tackles leader Daniel Bituli, sacks leader Darrell Taylor and interceptions leader Nigel Warrior depart – plus some of his best athletes on offense.

Those are problems for another day.

Thursday night was a time to celebrate a team that made for an eventful season.

Blake Toppmeyer covers University of Tennessee football. Email him at blake.toppmeyer@knoxnews.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer. If you enjoy Blake’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that will allow you access to all of it.