Big fun at Neyland Stadium

Accompanied by 107,528 of my closest friends, I went to my first University of Tennessee football game today. I tailgated first with Happy Bachelor Lawyer and several of his friends; that was great fun. After that, I hooked up with Eager Young Law Clerk and his friends. EYLC didn’t seem to be terribly amused by my description of how to find me — “I’m the guy in the orange shirt” — but everything worked out fine.

College football is Big Fun. This game was no exception. The emotional ride of the crowd, the enthusiasm of the students, and the impressive performance of the band (more on this below), however, did not overcome the fact that demonstrated that perhaps the pre-season hype has overrated the Volunteers. The UAB Blazers (their mascot is a dragon, not a sport utility vehicle) played UT very tough — and their quarterback, Darrell Hackney, should be going places in the near future. He’s smart, fast, and strong.

For a team ranked #3 nationally, The Volunteers looked flat on defense and had several miscues on offense — including two critical receptions. Perhaps the Volunteers bought in to the hype surrounding them for the past several weeks. But it’s clear at this point that they cannot rely on the “Neo-in-the-Matrix” strategy of winning games. If a smaller program like UAB — admittedly, one which apparently deserves a lot more respect than it got before today’s game — can keep UT on the ropes like this, I wonder how well the Vols will stand up to real challenges in Gainesville and Red Stick. It may be time for UT to give up some delusions of grandeur and concentrate on some basics like tackling and running routes.

With that said, I must add that Neyland Stadium on game day is an amazing sight to behold. The stadium has a stated capacity of 102,544 fans. However, today there was an announced attendance of more than five thousand more than that. Each and every person in the stands was wearing orange and white. It was a sea of orange out there.

And the band was quite good, too. Our friend Pam is in the band, and they put on quite an impressive halftime show. The choreography that is involved with one of those shows is astonishing — the variety of formations the band could move from was quite impressive, especially considering they were also playing classical music while they were moving. Most impressive was the final formation, the UT logo with the numbers “17” and “94” on either side of the logo indicating the year of the University’s founding. When I speak with Pam next, I’ll ask her where in that formation she was, because I couldn’t really see anyone’s face from the upper tier.

It feels like it’s been a while since I had Big Fun like that, although I know that’s not true. I have fun all the time, with The Wife and friends. But I guess it has been a while since I was at a big event, or at least a fun one.