UT's Justin Martin (8) tackles Appalachian State's Jaquil Capel (16) Thursday, Sept. 1, 2016, in Neyland Stadium.Could it be that the Tennessee Volunteers may not be who we thought they were?
We say that after the nation's No. 9 team was forced to go to overtime Thursday night to escape visiting Appalachian State, 20-13.
In what may have been the most depressing victory in Vols history, Team 120 looked disturbingly like a team ranked 120th in the NCAA's 128-team Football Bowl Subdivision rather than the preseason favorite to win the Southeastern Conference's East Division.
In fact, ASU fans will surely lament, if Mountaineers redshirt freshman kicker Michael Rubino hadn't missed a first-half extra point, the visitors might have won 14-13 in regulation, though no one knows how much more aggressive the Tennessee offense might have been had it been trailing instead of tied with 10:30 to go in the fourth quarter following a 67-yard Josh Dobbs scoring pass to Josh Malone.
What is known by the 100,074 folks who piled into Neyland Stadium on a mildly humid night is that the Vols fumbled away a punt return, recovered two other fumbles they momentarily lost, tossed a brain-dead interception just before the half and suffered 55 yards in penalties but won the game in overtime when Dobbs fumbled the ball into the end zone, only to have teammate Jalen Hurd fall in it for the go-ahead score.
Then again, they won, which is always better than a loss. Always.
Or as UT coach Butch Jones said afterward, "On a night when anything and everything went wrong, we found a way to win."
Nevertheless, in the eight days that will come and go before the Vols next take the field against Virginia Tech at the Bristol Motor Speedway, the Big Orange Nation surely will spend much time wondering if this was a case of first-game jitters or a reason for season-long shivers.
Yes, it was a win, the glass-half-full crowd will surmise. And before anyone starts canceling their SEC championship game plans for the first weekend in December in Atlanta, Appalachian State did go 11-2 last year with a bowl win in its first full-fledged FBS season.
The Mountaineers are quick, tough and experienced, matching the Vols in returning starters with 17. Beyond that, the first-quarter ejection of UT senior linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin for targeting no doubt helped the Mountaineers. The absence of arguably the fiercest and most disruptive of Vols defenders undoubtedly was a very big reason the the Mountaineers were outgaining the Vols on the ground by 183 yard to 113 yards heading into OT.
Still, for a team that seemed to have huge advantages in depth, size and overall talent, this has to lessen overall confidence going forward.
No matter the number of "unknowns" - as Coach Jones kept pointing out in the days leading into this one - no SEC team with serious championship dreams should be forced into overtime to beat a Sun Belt Conference team.
Yet because that happened, because the Big Orange blinked, other explanations must be discussed.
For starters, perhaps Dobbs is just good enough to get you beat, as former Vols basketball coach Ray Mears used to lament of certain performers.
And without that 67-yard pass to Malone - as pretty a toss under pressure as any ever launched inside this same stadium by Peyton Manning - UT probably would have lost.
Not that the fans were much in a mood to embrace the positives once the Vols fell into that 13-3 hole less than seven minutes into the second quarter. The first boos began with 6:06 to play in the opening half. A running play having gone nowhere to set up a third-and-11, the crowd couldn't take it anymore.
This was the football team picked to win the SEC East? This was the squad being projected as a possible college playoff entry?
So a few discordant voices let their frustrations be heard, their numbers growing a bit when the first half ended in the same score after Dobbs lofted an ill-advised pass that produced an interception on a third-and-3 from the ASU 28 that might eventually have delivered a field goal.
Whatever ultimately happened in this one, your senior quarterback shouldn't make that throw. Especially a senior aerospace engineering major.
But that's also the danger of scheduling a difficult opener, which Appalachian State was, regardless of its obscene newness to college football's FBS division.
As late as 2013, the Mountaineers were banging heads with UT-Chattanooga in the Southern Conference at the FCS level. But then they moved up to FBS and joined the Sun Belt, finishing last year at 11-2.
Yet regardless of how bad they looked in victory, there is at least one concrete reason to believe the Vols can overcome this down the road. In its second game of the 2014 season, Ohio State lost at home to Virginia Tech yet rallied to win the national championship.
UT hasn't yet lost, even if it no doubt feels that ways to many in the Big Orange Nation today.
Said Jones afterward: "We did some things that were very uncharacteristic of us."
If Team 120 is to end up anywhere close to the nation's No. 1 team, it must hope those things will be very uncharacteristic going forward.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com