KNOXVILLE — Out on Shields-Watkins Field nothing was certain, except that Vanderbilt had thrown an interception to Tennessee defensive back Eric Gordon on the Commodores’ first possession of Saturday night’s overtime.
Gordon returned the pickoff 90 yards for what appeared to be a score, and thus a 27-21 UT victory in Neyland Stadium.
But then the officials ruled his knee was down at the point of interception, which meant the Volunteers offense would have to score from 25 yards away to secure the proud program’s first Southeastern Conference win of the season.
Only every replay also was showing that Gordon’s knee was never down. Seeing this on the giant video board, the crowd of 91,367 was going nuts, screaming at UT coach Derek Dooley to challenge the ruling.
“But you can’t challenge that call,” Dooley said later. “That’s not a challengeable play. I wanted to find a microphone and tell the crowd that, because everybody was on me for not challenging it.”