KNOXVILLE — His first game as Tennessee’s head coach barely begun, Derek Dooley found himself discussing the butterflies in his stomach with quarterback Matt Simms.
“I was more nervous my first game in junior college,” said Simms, who would finish 14-for-24 for 181 passing yards and a touchdown in this eventual 50-0 Big Orange blowout.
“You know, I was more nervous my first game at Louisiana Tech,” Dooley replied. “I guess it gets easier with experience.”
From now on the experience will be decidedly more competitive for Dooley, Simms and the rest of these 2010 Vols.
UT-Martin played like the little brother that it is — held to one first down in the opening half, held scoreless throughout.
Yes, the Volunteers’ strength is their defense, and that showed throughout. But the coming week’s opponent will resemble the Skyhawks only in that they’ll be able to play 11 men at a time. Oregon hung 72 points and surrendered zero against New Mexico on Saturday.
When it comes to the Ducks, UT might do well to duck and run.
Then again, it’s doubtful that Dooley, Simms or the rest of the Vols showed much against UT-Martin.
“I’ve been on the other side, and that’s tough,” said Dooley, as if he was trying to apologize for the final score. “We played 12 freshmen today. We wore ’em down a little bit. Obviously, we have much better players.”
You can argue this morning whether they have enough good players against Oregon and the SEC. Then again, Ole Miss lost in overtime to Jacksonville State. Florida struggled against a bad Miami (Ohio) team. Auburn surrendered a fair number of points to Arkansas State.
A shutout is still a shutout and 50 points is still 50 points. There is hope here for at least a 6-6 season. Given what transpired elsewhere Saturday, the most orange among us might even realistically dream of 8-4.
But there is a different reason for Volniacs the nation over to feel better about their future than their recent past. Once again Saturday, Dooley said all the right things about the UT tradition.
“The emotional part was the Vol Walk,” he said. “That thing is unbelievable. The fans’ support after all they’ve been through the last couple of years. Just amazing.”
But he wasn’t done. Echoing a monstrous and magnificent part of the UT tradition that’s been around far longer than the Vol Walk (early 1980s) or checkerboard end zones (early 1960s), Dooley again referred to Gen. Robert Neyland’s maxims of success, which remain the program’s cornerstone.
“Do you know what Maxim No. 1 is?” he asked the media in his postgame comments. “It says the team that makes the fewest mistakes will win. I believe that. I believe that before you can win, you better not screw up. And we didn’t make many mistakes (two turnovers, 25 total penalty yards) tonight.”
It is just one game. But it also is one win.
Mindful of both points, Dooley said of the week ahead, “We start big-boy ball next week.”
Only time will tell if that gets easier with experience.
Mark Wiedmer started work at the Chattanooga News-Free Press on Valentine’s Day of 1983. At the time, he had to get an advance from his boss to buy a Valentine gift for his wife. Mark was hired as a graphic artist but quickly moved to sports, where he oversaw prep football for a time, won the “Pick’ em” box in 1985 and took over the UTC basketball beat the following year. By 1990, he was ...
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