Tennessee junior wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson carries the ball into the end zone during the first half.
ATLANTA – So this is what a Tennessee football team can look like under Derek Dooley when healthy, happy and blessed with a coaching staff that mirrors its head coach’s desire to attack rather than react.
It can look like this: Tennessee 35, North Carolina State 21.
This wasn’t some directional school answering to Southeastern North Dakota Western from college football’s hinterlands that the Big Orange beat inside a Georgia Dome where it had lost six straight times.
This was a team picked no worse than fourth in the Atlantic Coast Conference. A team that counted 13 seniors among its starters. A team that boasted an all-world secondary. A team whose quarterback, Mike Glennon, is a graduate student expected to graduate his 6-foot-6, 232-pound frame to the NFL next season.
Well, that all-world secondary gave up more than 300 passing yards and that quarterback was picked off four times, sacked once and hurried at least six times that often.