Commentary by Mark Wiedmer
KNOXVILLE – It’s difficult to explain precisely the ritual several Tennessee football players have recently embraced following unusually big plays.
Their hips sway slightly and their index fingers begin moving in a circular motion in the general direction of the ears. That second part somewhat resembles the gesture often used to describe crazy behavior.
“It’s kind of like, ‘Man, what a crazy play,'” wideout Gerald Jones said with a grin a few minutes after a lot of crazy plays conspired to make the Volunteers 52-14 winners over Ole Miss on Saturday afternoon in Neyland Stadium.
“Someone’s said it’s a Lil’ Wayne thing. I just know it’s fun.”
Fun. It reappears inside Neyland every November. Daylight savings time ends and the Big Orange fall back on their good ol’ days, when Vanderbilt and Kentucky always make the Vols look crazy good and Memphis makes its athletic director look just plain crazy for voluntarily scheduling the state’s beast to the east.
Then there’s Ole Miss, which isn’t always on the schedule but almost always plays along with the Vols’ November Knockdown theme whenever the two meet.
Not last year, of course. The Rebels thoroughly vexed the Vols during a 42-17 win that was barely that close down the stretch.
But there had been 12 straight UT victories over Ole Miserable before that one, many of them in November, most by comfortable margins.
Said Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt after Saturday’s defeat: “Just a bad, bad day for the Ole Miss Rebels. A bad feeling, a bad showing.”
Yet anything producing so much frustration and anger on one end should produce a similarly opposite feeling of comfort and joy on the other end.
“We actually line up right now,” UT first-year coach Derek Dooley joked. “We used to not even line up right.”
“This is our first complete game as a team,” offered UT defensive end Chris Walker.
“It’s nice to see good things finally happening for us,” added Jones, who caught four passes for 48 yards.
“When we play like this, we can beat anybody,” said defensive back Prentiss Waggner, who set a UT single-season record by returning an interception for a touchdown for the third time this season.
Jones again, this time in describing freshman Justin Hunter’s unlikely 80-yard TD catch off a deflected pass not three minutes into the game: “He was covering 4 yards a step. He’s like [the racehorse] Zenyatta out there.”
But the Vols are mostly playing like this because they are finally playing freshman Tyler Bray at quarterback. For sure, Bray wouldn’t have thrown eight touchdowns in his first two starts (five against Memphis, three against Ole Miss) if the Vols were in the middle of their spooky October slate of LSU, Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina.
Bray’s good. But nobody may be good enough to sweep that quartet, including the quarterback Bray will ultimately always be judged against – Peyton Manning.
As Walker said of the Vols’ winless October, “I don’t think anybody in college football had a tougher four-game stretch than we did. But I think what we learned from those games are why we’re winning now.”
Given that they’ve won 49 of their last 50 against final foes Vanderbilt and Kentucky, the Vols should win out, then head to Nashville in late December for the Music City Bowl.
And when they get there, Bray undoubtedly will be making that crazy gesture with his teammates because, well, in his words, “I don’t know what it means, but everybody else was doing it and it looked like fun.”
It is great fun watching him progress so swiftly.
“Tyler just knows where to put the football,” Hunter said after catching two of Bray’s throws for touchdowns. “He always puts it where you can catch it.”
Over the last 10 quarters Bray has thrown 10 passes for touchdowns. As a true freshman. Behind an offensive line that’s surrendered a horrific 34 sacks this season. With numbers like that you could argue he’s more Peyton Plus than Peyton Light.
As he left the field Saturday afternoon, Bray pulled his white Adidas sweatband from his right wrist and handed it to 4-year-old Alexis Hood of Kingsport, Tenn.
“She’ll put it in our Tennessee room,” said her father, Allyn Hood.
Someone then asked Hood what he thought of Bray.
“I like him,” he said. “He looks like he’s got a bright future.”
As bright as Peyton Manning?
“It’s way too early for that,” he said. “There’s only one Peyton.”
At least for now.