The first stop of the 2022 Big Orange Caravan was almost at its end Tuesday night when Bob Kesling, the Voice of the Tennessee Vols and the emcee for the event at Chattanooga Whiskey, threw it open for questions to Lady Vols basketball coach Kellie Jolly Harper and football coach Josh Heupel.
The first question from the crowd of 250 or so came to Heupel: “Was it a touchdown?”
Nobody in Big Orange Country needs background regarding what touchdown the fan was referencing. Some 110 days after the Vols appeared to be have been robbed by the officials in their 48-45 Music City Bowl loss to Purdue thanks to an apparent touchdown the officials ruled short of the goal, the Vols fan base still wants an apology that will never come from the Atlantic Coast Conference crew.
Replied Heupel: “Could you read my lips? We thought it would be overturned.”
That controversial defeat aside, there is a strong sense that Heupel and his staff are about to overturn a past decade of misery in their second season atop Rocky Top, quite possibly winning 10 regular-season games for the first time since 2001.