Kentucky defense has bad memories of Tennessee, but is the challenge different this year?

Kentucky football defensive coordinator Brad White had to know the questions were coming, but that did not make them any easier to bear.

What did his defense learn from a 44-6 blowout loss at Tennessee a year ago? What lessons could be taken from the 45-42 loss to the Volunteers in 2021 about avoiding another shootout or weathering the storm if the 2023 edition of the rivalry game turned into one?

“Man, you guys just love to dig up bad memories,” White said with a chuckle before making it clear those games were on his mind long before reporters mentioned them.

White quickly rattled off a play-by-play breakdown of what went wrong in the 2021 loss, starting with two Tennessee touchdowns of at least 72 yards in the Volunteers’ first four offensive plays. Last season’s game was out of hand by halftime, leading to fewer tense moments than the back-and-forth affair the year before, but the sting obviously lingers.

“We can’t let the ball over our head,” White deadpanned. “That’s pretty straightforward. You’ve got to be a good tackling team.”

Under White’s leadership, Kentucky’s defense has typically prided itself on the ability to limit opponents’ big plays. Yes, some teams have found success dinking and dunking down the field against the Wildcats, but by limiting explosive plays the defense keeps Kentucky in games more often than not.

That trend has not held up against Josh Heupel’s high-octane Tennessee offense the last two years though.

Tennessee has scored five offensive touchdowns of at least 30 yards in those games. The Volunteers play at one of the fastest paces in the country and offer a unique challenge by splitting the wide receivers out wider than almost any other offense.

“It’s different from any other team, I would say, just because they go so much faster,” cornerback Andru Phillips said. “Some teams try to copy it or emulate it, but Tennessee has a way of doing things with their routes, their tempo they run at which makes it unique.”

Phillips and fellow starting cornerback Maxwell Hairston have put in extra conditioning work after practices throughout the last two weeks in order to better prepare for the physical toll of defending Tennessee’s tempo, but the mental toll might be just as taxing.

“I think your mind is such a big part, to get locked in,” Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said. “... This is no team to sit there and watch the game. By that I mean a defensive player just sitting there watching things that are going on in front of him. They better do their jobs, and they better do it at a very, very high level.”

“That’s one thing I don’t think people think about,” Phillips said. “It is kind of hard sometimes just because you could be out there a whole game and they may not throw your way. But that one time they do and you’re not paying attention, it could be the most important play.”

While Tennessee’s tempo has not changed, the Volunteers’ offensive statistics have taken a step back from a year ago when Heupel’s offense was among the best in the country.

Through seven games, Tennessee ranks 33rd nationally in yards per game (438.1), down 87.4 yards per game from a year ago when the Volunteers led the country in that category. Tennessee ranks 44th in points per game (31.6), down 14.5 points per game from a nation-leading 46.1 last season.

Quarterback Hendon Hooker and star wide receivers Jalin Hyatt and Cedric Tillman are gone. New Volunteers quarterback Joe Milton has one of the strongest arms in the country but ranks just eighth in the SEC in passing yards per game. Top receiver Bru McCoy is expected to miss the rest of the season with an ankle injury.

The change in personnel has led to a shift in priorities as Tennessee now ranks seventh nationally in rushing yards per game (217.29). The Volunteers ranked 26th in that category a year ago (199.46 yards per game).

Kentucky ranks 13th nationally in rushing defense (95.71), but Tennessee’s tempo and wide splits will present a different challenge in the run game than any previous opponent too.

“Their tempo creates problems, but I think they’re very balanced,” Stoops said. “... They’re about exactly 50/50 right now — 217 (yards per game rushing) to 220 (yards per game passing). It’s about as balanced as you can get.”

Tennessee’s offense looked more than effective enough when it jumped out to a 20-7 lead over Alabama a week ago, but the Volunteers were shut out in the second half on the way to a 34-20 loss.

This is not a Tennessee team that looks unstoppable like it did at times a year ago, but Kentucky has to exorcise its own demons from a series that has seen it fail to take advantage of down Tennessee teams too often over the last decade to prove capable of exploiting any weaknesses.

“I think at the end of the day these guys know that we’ve got to win some of these too to make it a true rivalry,” offensive coordinator Liam Coen said. “It is a rivalry. We believe that in terms of our guys and all that stuff, Tennessee being so close, but it’s on us to go out there and take something and go take it. They’ve obviously had the upper hand in the last couple games. We’ve got to come out and prove that we can beat these guys, that we can beat Tennessee and we can play to our standard. It’s really about us at the end of the day.”

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