UT quarterback Joshua Dobbs carries toward the goal line in overtime, but fumbles the ball. It was recovered by Jalen Hurd, who scored the winning touchdown in the gam against Appalachian State Thursday, Sept. 1, 2016 in Neyland Stadium.KNOXVILLE -- If Josh Dobbs is still sore after taking a helmet directly to his ribs in Tennessee's overtime win against Appalachian State, the quarterback isn't not revealing it.
The elephant in the room since the Volunteers escaped with the overtime win last Thursday night has been the health of arguably the team's most important player heading into Saturday night's game against Virginia Tech at the "Battle at Bristol."
Dobbs said after the game he just had the wind knocked out of him by Appalachian State's Kennan Gilchrist, and he reiterated there's nothing to see here on Monday.
"I'm fine," Dobbs said. "The play worked out in our favor. We were just excited to get the win."
Rumors and speculation swirled over the weekend that Dobbs had broken or cracked ribs from the hit, but Tennessee coach Butch Jones shot those down and scoffed at the notion Dobbs wouldn't start against the Hokies at Bristol Motor Speedway.
"Whoever people's sources are," Jones said, "you better check your source."
Still, it will be interesting if there are any lingering affects of the hard hit. Dobbs may not be 100 percent, but that won't be known until Saturday night. The only practice with any media viewing is Tuesday, but it probably will be impossible to discern any potential problem from those brief open periods.
Dobbs was 16-of-29 passing for 192 yards with one touchdown to Josh Malone and an ill-advised interception costing the Vols a field goal attempt just before halftime, and he also was responsible for two fumbles, though one was recovered in the end zone for the winning touchdown.
"There's a number of things that you don't see where we had receivers open and we had a breakdown in protection and we weren't able to get the ball (out)," Jones said. "There's times where I thought he did a really good job of standing in the pocket.
"The thing that I thought was uncharacteristic of him and our entire football team was the amount of balls on the ground and taking care of the football."
Dobbs also had negative rushing yardage for the first time in his career, though he only had nine attempts, a total including two sacks and a couple of scrambles.
"We were excited to get the win," Dobbs said. "You go back and you watch college football, there were some crazy games this past weekend. We're 1-0. We've watched the film as a team and as a unit, identified what we did well and how we need to improve.
"We've already started preparing for the second game."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.