Florida's secondary said all week it was looking forward to playing against mistake-prone Tennessee quarterback Jonathan Crompton.
Crompton didn't let the Gators down.
UF held Crompton to 11 of 19 passing for 93 yards with no touchdowns and two interceptions.
Saturday marked the 15th straight game in which the Gators' defense had an interception, tops in the nation.
"With our secondary, we don't really feel like anybody can throw the ball against us," Florida cornerback Joe Haden said. "We were hoping they would try to challenge us a little bit more. They ran the ball a lot more than I expected."
With Crompton struggling, Tennessee tried to depend on its two-headed rushing attack of Montario Hardesty (20 carries, 96 yards) and Bryce Brown (8 carries, 21 yards). The Volunteers ran the ball on three third downs of 10 yards or longer, converting only one such attempt.
After halftime, however, Tennessee came out throwing and opened its first third-quarter drive with an incompletion, a 5-yard completion and then an interception by Haden.
"We came up a little short, that's a big explosive play at that time of the game, and I thought we had that in us," Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin said. "Coming out of the locker room, we believed we could win."
The turnover gave UF the ball on its own 35 and led to a field goal, extending the Gators' lead to 10.
"It was a big pick. It got the crowd into it for the defense and right after he got that interception, the offense went down and scored," Florida LB Ryan Stamper said. "It was a big game-changer for us."
Safety Ahmad Black added a standout performance, two weeks after starting the season opener on the bench. The junior, who started all 14 games last year, was second on the team with 11 tackles Saturday and also assisted on a tackle for loss. Black regained his starting job last week and sealed the win over the Volunteers with an interception on Tennessee's final drive.
"Ahmad Black played really well, but Ahmad Black played really well last year too," Stamper said. "We have three really good safeties - Ahmad Black, Will Hill, Major Wright - all three of them can play really well. But tonight was Ahmad Black's day."
Despite being frustrated with missed tackles, Florida came out with a win in its Southeastern Conference opener Saturday, and the secondary was a big reason why.
"I'm not willing to say they're the best, but they're one of the best I've ever been around," coach Urban Meyer said. " (They're) good guys, play hard, well-coached. That's one of the strengths of our team right now."
