Mark WiedmerBRISTOL, Tenn. - With ESPN's "GameDay" crew all but swallowed whole by a sea of Tennessee Orange during their Saturday morning show at the Bristol Motor Speedway, the show's Desmond Howard said the Volunteers' overtime win over Appalachian State on Sept. 1 was "the best thing that could have happened to (UT coach) Butch Jones."
Evidently.
For after more than a week of harsh criticism and concern by the entirety of Big Orange Nation over that lackluster showing, the Vols finally looked at least somewhat like the football team they were supposed to be in vanquishing Virginia Tech 45-24 in Saturday night's Battle of Bristol.
It wasn't without temporary tension, given the 14-0 hole the Vols found themselves in through the first quarter, which was not vastly different from the 13-3 halftime deficit they faced against Appalachian State.
Yet unlike that frightful sight, Tennessee rallied to lead 24-14 by halftime against the Techsters, never to trail again. And when senior quarterback Josh Dobbs hurdled defenders to fly into the end zone as only an aeronautical engineering major can, the Vols had the kind of 38-17 advantage that great teams are supposed to have with 6:45 to go in a fourth quarter.
At that moment, "S-E-C! S-E-C!" not only filled the speedway, much to the chagrin of the ACC member Hokies, but also the smug, "Nah-na-na-nah, Nah-na-na-nah, hey-hey-hey, goodbye," as well as the obligatory "Rocky Top."
To say order has been restored in Volsville - at least for those who believe order is the glory days of the 1990s rather than that 40-47 run the Vols had over the seven seasons from 2008 to 2014 - might be an understatement.
The biggest winner may have been the event itself, however. And those 156,990 fans who crowded into the NASCAR venue to set the record for largest crowd ever to attend a college game - beating the old record of 115,109 who watched the 2009 Michigan-Notre Dame game at the Wolverines' Big House - was only part of the story.
From the beginning it felt something like a cross between a Southern fried Woodstock and the film set of an action movie, what with RVs and camping equipment blanketing the hillsides that frame the speedway, helicopters filling the skies for hours as they buzzed about like bees attacking honeysuckle, and sirens piercing the air, either to whisk dignitaries from point A to point B, or to keep the peace for everyone else.
But for all the obvious uniqueness of staging a football game inside a venue that could hold the baseball palaces Wrigley Field and Fenway Park inside its infield at the same time, it was the playing of the national anthem that stamped this event as something truly special.
As the first words of Francis Scott Key's masterpiece left Grammy-winner Jennifer Nettles' lips, the crowd's voices slowly but steadily rose in volume as card sections formed the image of the Stars and Stripes flag on both sides of the field.
By the time "Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave " rolled around, the crowd was drowning out Nettles, almost screaming the words, as if all 156,990 of them were hoping the protesting NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick could hear them at his San Francisco home.
Then they punctuated their pride in their country on this most emotional of weekends - the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks arriving today - by chanting, "U-S-A! U-S-A!"
Throw in a rousing halftime performance by Lee Greenwood belting out his timeless "Proud to be an American" hit, a performance also notable for how the crowd joined in, and it's clear that at least in this portion of the United States, Kaepernick has become a uniter rather than a divider, though perhaps not as he planned.
And given that, if nothing else about this game is remembered long into the future, everything surrounding that anthem and halftime should be fondly retold for decades to come.
Was the Battle for Bristol perfect? Perhaps not. There was more than one fan directed to the wrong gate. Traffic crawled both before and afterward. Entry gates into the stadium seemed unnecessarily slow, though security was understandably on high alert due to both the unusual nature of this game and this being 9/11 weekend.
Still, it must be repeated that never before had so many attended a college football game. For that reason alone, it all seemed to run remarkably smoothly, and certainly worthy of an encore performance by two more deserving schools sometime in the near future.
It should also be noted that a new playing surface will have to be made if a second Battle is staged, since the speedway is giving this one to East Tennessee State later this year to use in its new stadium.
But the Vols and their fans pretty much got what they needed out of this game. They got a solid win against a seemingly solid foe after falling in a 14-0 hole the Hokies.
Does UT yet look like the best team in the SEC East? Perhaps not. Especially given Florida's 45-7 crushing of Kentucky on Saturday. Falling into a 14-0 hole against the Gators or Alabama would seem to be a treacherous path to travel to reach the SEC title game.
That's an argument for another week, though. Perhaps the week of Sept. 24, when Florida comes calling, bringing with it an 11-game winning streak over the Vols.
For now, seemingly overmatched Ohio on tap for Saturday, the vision of five recovered Hokies fumbles still dancing in their heads, it's safe to say the Big Orange Nation believes its football team is back to being a contender as it has not been back in more than a decade. If Appalachian State deserves a thank-you note from Butch Jones for such a revival, so be it.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com