Fulbright's first possession was futile. Tennessee blasted the kickoff through the back of the end zone so the Generals got the ball at their own 25. Three plays later, they punted from their own 22. Not since the game at Mississippi State had Fulbright gone three-and-out on the opening possession, and Stark Middleton's admonition rang loud in Perry Hemphill's ears. His offensive line seemed out-of-synch. Bookie Riemers ran the wrong way on second down, forcing Mason Gerow to eat the ball for a two-yard loss when he realized he had no one to hand the ball off to.
When the offense came off the field, Hemphill gathered them in their area of the bench and attempted to settle them down.
"Fellas, you've been here before. This is like the game at Vandy when you were so jacked up by the emotion of the moment that you needed a while to settle down, play your game and have fun. That's all you need to do right now. Take a few deep breaths, settle down and just go out and execute the way you have all season," the coach said. "You got this."
No sooner had he finished speaking than he heard a roar from the corner of the stadium clad in highway-crew orange and a collective groan from the overwhelming mass of the sellout crowd. On second down and short, Tennessee quickly took formation without a huddle, as was its style, in the same alignment that had gained eight yards on the previous play. The Generals lost sight of Tennessee's towering wide receiver who released down the right sideline and caught a 40-yard strike from the Vols' quarterback and raced in for the game's first touchdown with less than three minutes elapsed.
"That's OK, y'all. We gave up a cheap one. Now we fixin' to go out here and
grudge fuck
them orange assholes," Mojo said, the sentimentality in his eyes now replaced by a burning rage as he gathered his teammates on offense around him.
What Perry Hemphill had tried to do before he was so rudely interrupted by Tennessee's touchdown and Tennessee's band and its corny version of "Rocky Top," Mojo Hale had achieved in his own, profane yet singularly inspirational way: he made them relax, get back into their zone and onto the same page — and even laugh.
It was a wholly different team in the home green jerseys that took the field again on their own 25 after the second Vol kickoff bounced out the back of the end zone. The offense stood a good three yards behind the ball until the referees signaled that the network had returned from its three-minute commercial break. Then they quickly took their place on the ball, and Matt Crews snapped it quickly after the ball was signaled ready for play.
This time Crews and right guard Ora James tore open a large seam in Tennessee's three-man defensive front. The linebacker who tried to fill it was jolted backward by a block from Bookie Riemers, and his fellow tailback, Dorie Masters had a massive expanse of green before him. By the time a pursuing cornerback chased him down, Masters had flipped the field, giving Fulbright a first down on Tennessee's 23, a 52-yard gain.
The scouting report was right: the strength of Tennessee's defense was its linebackers. Its defensive front was big, mobile and physically powerful, but young and easily fooled. And the defensive secondary had a habit of biting on trick alignments and were easily misdirected by Mason Gerow's eyes as he looked one way and then threw to a receiver in a different part of the field. On the fifth play of the drive, Gerow hit Philando Fernandez in the end zone from 12 yards out and Gene Hurley, who had taken over as starting field goal kicker tied the game with the extra point.
This was shaping up as a high-scoring game, something that was widely predicted. The Volunteers took the ball from Fulbright and went right back on the march, finding the end zone for the second time to cap a 10-play, 80-yard drive - this time with most of the damage being done on the ground. Tennessee had found a way to attack the Fulbright perimeter and keep the defensive end from setting up outside containment and forcing the play back inside. That would be a problem all afternoon if the defense couldn't find a solution and Hemphill was talking intently to the defensive coordinator in the pressbox.
Now trailing by 7 points with three minutes left in the first quarter, the Generals got a strong kickoff return by lightning-fast defensive back LaShon Quigley, doing double duty on the kickoff receiving team. The Generals began their possession on their own 38, and moved quickly into Tennessee territory. Fulbright was doing an effective job keeping Tennessee's defense off-balance, hammering its front with fast-hitting carries by Bookie Riemers and Dorie Masters and, just when a pass seemed inevitable, finding a crease in the line that was good for runs of eight, 10 or sometimes 15 yards.
Fulbright was on Tennessee's 13 when Gerow found Mojo on first down in the end zone for what seemed to be a touchdown, but a late flag by the back judge negated the score and moved the ball back to the 23. The call was offensive pass interference for what the officials contended was an illegal pick play in which another receiver interfered with the defensive player covering Hale. The replay on the stadium Jumbotron showed no contact between the alleged offender and the defensive player. Fulbright fans were furious, booing the officials several plays after the call had been made. The Generals had regained the 10 yards lost to the penalty plus eight more to give Fulbright a fourth down and two at the Tennessee five. Perry Hemphill called his first time out.
"Rance, what are you seeing. Can you handle your guy enough to make 38 read option work?" Middleton asked the offensive team gathered near the sideline.
"I can handle the defensive end, but the problem is the linebackers. They flow and fill so fast. Maybe add some misdirection like the sweep we ran off the read option against Wake or the play action pass we ran off the 38 red option that we used to score against Georgia?" Rance said.
Gerow nodded. "Coach that pass play is there. We can make that work. We'll stack everybody in a full house backfield like a run and pop it for at least a first down if not a score," he said.
"Do it," Hemp said.
Tennessee put its heavy package in the game and pinched its down linemen inside to stop what its coaches figured would most likely be another dive through the center-guard gap. But to safeguard against the well-scouted 38 read option, the Vols walked their linebackers to within two yards of the line of scrimmage. Gerow couldn't have set Tennessee up for failure any better if he'd drawn up the defense himself. The play worked as advertised and Gerow found Fernandez wide open at the 2 for a walk-in touchdown.
And so it went. Tennessee scored another touchdown after a long drive and a field goal in the second quarter. Fulbright scored two touchdowns to take a four-point lead, 28-24, by intermission.
At halftime, Fulbright coaches, including Hemphill, focused on the defense, looking for a way to re-establish the perimeter without sacrificing too much up the middle or downfield on the Vols highly effective run-pass option game. The offense gathered on the opposite end of the holding room with Stark Middleton, who wanted to more to exploit the success Fulbright had running the ball right into Tennessee's middle, negating the sideline-to-sideline speed of the Vols' elite linebackers and forcing them to man up and stop the run. He liked it, however, because as it bred success on the ground, the more Tennessee would focus its defensive resources into the middle, exposing its already porous secondary to intermediate and deep strikes from the same type of high-octane run-pass option offense the Volunteers used so well.
"Guys," Middleton said, looking at his linemen, "this is your game. By that, I mean I want you to use your own initiative and your own smarts, to communicate with Gerow and figure out better ways as the second half plays out to outwit and best handle this Tennessee defense. I would say I've taught you all I can, but y'all have actually taught yourselves. I have faith in you, and I want you to have faith and confidence in one another now."
Indeed, the entire line had bought in fully to the sort of film study that Rance had taught Crews to do and that they had popularized with the entire line. It was as much a part of game-week preparation now as practice itself.
Tennessee took the kickoff to begin the second half — a freshman kick returner's ill-considered decision to try to run back a kick he caught five yards deep in his own end zone, giving the Vols the ball on their own 14. The halftime adjustments shut down Tennessee's wide running plays after the defensive end or linebacker — whoever had the responsibility for turning plays back inside — got deeper upfield. But Tennessee was having more success pounding the ball at Fulbright's smaller defense between the two tackles. The Vols had picked up three first downs and were just across midfield when what appeared to be another dive up the middle was instead a deep pass to Tennessee's tall, speedy flanker who leapt over LaShon Quigley and came down with the ball at the Fulbright 8 yard line. Two running plays later, the Vols faced third down and goal from the 2 when they took a page from Fulbright's playbook. They stacked the backfield for what looked like a power surge into the end zone when the quarterback flipped the ball to a speedy tailback who had faked toward the line before breaking toward the right and what appeared to be too few Generals to keep him out of the end zone.
