The Tennessee Vols beat the Florida Gators on Saturday in large part because of Josh Heupel's aggressive pre-halftime approach that differed greatly from the approach we saw from previous UT head coach Jeremy Pruitt.

With under three minutes to play in the first half, the Vols got the ball back on their own one-yard line trailing 14-10.

Tennessee proceeded to go on a 99-yard drive that culminated with a one-yard touchdown pass from Hendon Hooker to Bru McCoy.

That drive completely flipped the momentum in UT's favor.

And if Pruitt was the head coach, it probably would've never happened.

Pruitt made it clear during his time at Tennessee that his goal in the final four minutes of the first half (if he was getting the ball to start the second half, which was the Vols' situation on Saturday against Florida) was to run out the clock and not give the opposing team an easy scoring chance. He was basically playing defense while on offense.

Here are Pruitt's comments from after the 2020 Florida game when he faced a similar situation as Heupel did this week (via 247Sports).

No, I think a lot of it’s on the coaching staff, having a plan, understanding what you want to get accomplished. If you’re going to get the ball to start the second half, it’s my opinion that if you’ve got the ball in the last four minutes of the first half, the No. 1 goal should be to run the clock out, right? I mean, everybody thinks, ‘Let’s go score.’ Obviously, you want to score, for sure, right? But to me, it’s important to make sure as you’re doing it that you do eat up the clock where you don’t give those guys an opportunity to have a chance to score. For instance, Saturday, we punted the football, didn’t get a first with a minute and 38 seconds left, and there was critical third downs along the drive that Florida ended up scoring a touchdown on. But if we would have gotten one more first down, we would have ensured that we ran the clock out, so the score at halftime would have been 10-7 instead of 17-7, for sure.

Heupel obviously didn't have the same approach against Florida as Pruitt. So instead of trailing 14-10 at halftime, the Vols went into the locker room with a 17-14 lead. Then they came out and scored on the first possession of the second half, stretching their lead to 24-14.

In Pruitt's scenario, the Vols go into the half down 14-10 or worse (as they did in 2020 when they weren't aggressive, tried to bleed the clock, and ended up giving the Gators the ball back and watched them score). And who knows what happens from there (it probably doesn't end with a UT win).

Coaches talk all the time about controlling the middle eight minutes of the game. Heupel did that to perfection on Saturday and it completely changed the tone of the game.

So why bring up what Pruitt did in 2020?

Well, I think it's important to look at mistakes that previous coaches made — especially in game management — to make sure the current coach isn't making the same mistakes.

Regardless of what you think of Pruitt, he has a great football mind. But his lack of experience as a head coach led to numerous missteps.

Heupel has considerably more coaching experience than Pruitt and it shows on Saturdays — we aren't seeing those same missteps.

Tennessee's win against Florida wasn't pretty at times. But the Vols made the right decisions in the big moments and that's what won them the game.

Heupel wasn't perfect on Saturday — a coach rarely is — but the job he did as a head coach is the reason Tennessee was able to beat Florida for the first time since 2016.

Featured image via Caitie McMekin/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK