It will be known for the drive in Nashville.
It will be remembered for the spot in Knoxville.
Vanderbilt, whose offense was stagnant for nearly all of the second half, saved its best for last with a 12-play, 92-yard drive in the waning minutes to beat Tennessee 14-10 on a frosty Saturday night at Neyland Stadium.
Backup quarterback Patton Robinette scored on a 5-yard run after faking a jump pass with 16 seconds left to stun most of the 97,233 in attendance.
“Neyland is an intense environment, and coming out with a win is huge for us,” Robinette said.
The touchdown followed an overturned call on the field that saw Vanderbilt starting quarterback Austyn Carta-Samuels’ fourth-down sneak spotted at the UT 34.
“No comment on the officials today,” Tennessee coach Butch Jones said. “That pretty much summarizes it.”
Replay confirmed that he advanced the ball to the 33, and Vanderbilt was given new life with 46 seconds remaining.
“We thought that we had the first down,” Vanderbilt coach James Franklin said. “After that, it’s out of our hands. You’d like to get to the point where you don’t put yourself in that position, that you clearly make it obvious that you got the first down without having to go to the review.
“But I know our coaches were really confident in the booth and the players were really confident that they’d got the first down.”
Carta-Samuels completed a 25-yard pass to Jordan Matthews after the reversal to put Vanderbilt on the doorstep. Matthews finished with a career-high 13 catches for 133 yards to become the SEC’s all-time receptions leader, passing ex-Commodore Earl Bennett.
Tennessee (4-7, 1-6 SEC) was eliminated from bowl consideration for the third consecutive year and ensured itself a losing record for the fourth year in a row. Jones became the first Vols coach to lose his series opener against Vanderbilt since Doug Dickey in 1964.
Franklin and the Commodores (7-4, 4-4) backed up last year’s 41-18 rout and celebrated in Knoxville for the first time since 2005, when Jay Cutler led a late touchdown drive for a 28-24 victory. It was Vanderbilt’s first time to beat UT back-to-back since 1925-26.
Prior to Robinette’s heroics, the Vols had the lone score of the second half on Michael Palardy’s 32-yard field goal with 9:06 left in the third quarter.
Vanderbilt entered Saturday with 16 takeaways in its last four games and a plus-eight turnover margin in its last two, but Franklin’s squad was in a giving mood at UT. It lost three fumbles — two inside the UT 20 — to go along with an interception. UT committed three turnovers of its own.
“We started the game out on certain sides of the ball trying our hardest to lose the game,” Franklin said. “But the thing that I think is so special about this team is this team knows how to win. … Vanderbilt now has a culture. And that culture is we expect to win week in and week out.”
The Commodores rotated quarterbacks much of the night, but the results weren’t always there. UT’s defense, which surrendered 444 rushing yards to Auburn two weeks ago, held the Commodores to 90 yards on the ground.
UT’s struggles through the air were even more prevalent. Vols freshman quarterback Joshua Dobbs was limited to 53 passing yards on 11-of-19 passing with two interceptions against a Vanderbilt secondary that lost all four starters to injury or ejection during the game.
Vanderbilt had two excellent scoring chances earlier in the second half, but Robinette lost the ball at the UT 16 lunging forward for extra yardage, and Carey Spear came up short on a 42-yard field goal after the Commodores took possession at the UT 29 following a poor punt.
The Commodores took a 7-0 lead on Jerron Seymour’s 4-yard run at 6:09 of the first quarter. The score capped a 61-yard drive after Dobbs’ first interception.
UT tied it 7-7 on the first play of the second quarter when running back Rajion Neal found the end zone from 5 yards out.
The Vols had other chances but often backpedaled after getting in scoring range. Palardy threw an interception in the fourth quarter when the Vols tried a fake field goal that was doomed from the start.
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