Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel hurt some feelings, but he had absolutely no other choice
Tennessee Volunteers head coach Josh Heupel hurt some feelings at the end of UT’s 34-6 win over the Kentucky Wildcats.
Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel hurt some feelings on Saturday night in the Vols’ 34-6 win over Kentucky.
But he had no other choice.
Wildcats fans were upset that Tennessee didn’t take a knee at the end of the fourth quarter and instead scored a touchdown with a little over a minute left on the clock.
Kentucky didn’t have any timeouts remaining, so Heupel could’ve called for two quarterback kneels and ran out the clock without running another play.
College Football Playoff committee chairman Hunter Yurachek, though, hinted during last week’s rankings reveal show that style points matter. Margin of victory is clearly something that’s factoring into the committee’s decisions, so Heupel couldn’t leave seven points on the field. 34-6 looks a lot different than 27-6 (it also gave Tennessee the same margin of victory over Kentucky this season as Alabama….though the Crimson Tide’s win came on the road against the Wildcats).
There’s also the fact that Kentucky fans were quite obnoxious before the game, with one group of UK fans even coming to Tennessee’s campus and painting the rock.
I don’t know if Heupel was thinking about the rock when he called for a running play on first-and-goal with a little over a minute left, but I think all Tennessee fans can agree that Kentucky deserved it after all of the trash talk leading up to this game.
