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Piecing together the events of last Saturday in Knoxville in the wildest college football ending ever.
With an under a minute to play, Tennessee faced a fourth and 24 and a five-point deficit to Ole Miss with a only a hope and a prayer left.
Twenty three and a half yards and one lengthy video review later chaos erupted at Neyland Stadium as over 100,000 fans vomited debris onto the field.
A checkerboard of garbage was created on the field that ended up being a mix of beauty and ugly just like the orange and white checker-boarded end zones.
The artists that threw water bottles, beer cans, and mustard jars were largely unknown to the public. Young, misunderstood and potentially depressed individuals that were pushed over the edge with one final perceived injustice and therefore driven to form a mob.
The kicker, however, was when someone chucked a neon golf ball at Rebel coach Lane Kiffin—who just happened to coach Tennessee for a single season in 2009 before jettisoning off to USC.
It was the most dangerous, destructive and demonstrative display of fan behavior I have ever seen at the college level. The only two events that rival this was the Miami-Florida International brouhaha of ‘06 and the NFL’s ‘Bottlegate’ in 2001 when Cleveland Brown fans hurled beer bottles after a pivotal booth review against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Ole Miss fans are not innocent here by the way. Take a look at this basketball clip from 2019:
In both ‘Bottlegate’ and in Knoxville, the home team was down five and driving to win in the final minute before a booth review seemingly sealed their fates. The ruling created an instant mob mentality and the aftermath consisted of players, coaches and other personnel of being at risk in a now severely dangerous environment.
Each time the fans reacted negatively with their pent up anger from their team’s inefficient play for the previous 59 minutes, which boiled over into them seeking some vigilante sort of justice. In the process, they broke the social contract of all sporting events which implies that you can pretty much do anything inside a stadium—even storm the field—so long as you do not use physical violence or verbally assault those competing.
And here is the wild part…
Tennessee still had an opportunity to get the ball back and win the game even after their failed fourth down attempt. It’s a miracle the crowd didn’t get an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and cost the Vols the game.
After the band and cheerleaders departed the stadium; fans were cleared out of the bleachers closest to the action and the field was cleaned up, the Volunteers forced a three and out, using all three time outs to get the ball back.
Tennessee got the ball near midfield with about 40 seconds remaining, lost their quarterback to injury on the first play, had their backup QB complete his first pass to the Rebel 21 with 11 seconds left and nearly had a touchdown two plays later that went through the hands of his wide receiver.
If that ball is caught, then Vols fans are storming the same field in jubilation that they had just littered in anger minutes before! That would have been a sight to behold.
Instead, Coach Kiffin pulled up his white hoodie like a juvenile delinquent being escorted away by his parents that, although he technically did nothing wrong, you just know is the main instigator behind the entire thing.
He tried to take the high road after the 31-26 win was finally official, but his smirk said that infamous Seinfeld line that Kiffin would not— ‘I won’t lie to you… the Knoxville crowd was angry that day my friends’—as he held up the neon golf ball.
SEC Punishment
The SEC fines universities $100,000 when their fans storm the field. They only fined Tennessee $250,000 for these actions. I argue that is nowhere near enough and that the penalty should have included 1) a minimum seven-figure fine (at least a million dollars); 2) reduce student and general capacity to 75 percent for their three homes games this year; and 3) suspend the sale of alcohol through the 2022 season and identify fans who participated and suspend them through the 2022 season.
BYU’s Big 12 Christening
There were several notable events on Baylor’s Homecoming: the longest parade continued their tradition, Robert Griffin III ran the Baylor Line for the first time, and the BYU Cougars were welcomed into the Big 12 conference (thought they do not officially join until 2023).
Unbelievably, the Mormons traveled very well. A ton of Cougar fans live in Dallas as it turns out, but I also met fans from Provo, D.C. and a doctor from Arizona whose partner is former Baylor basketball player Dr. Doug Brandt—a six-foot-10 late ‘90s forward who averaged over 11 points per game in his career.
Near 40 percent of McLane Stadium’s capacity was BYU blue—and they were loud! It was the loudest visiting fan base at a Baylor game since the Bears played TCU in 2014.
Though Baylor dominated in rushing yards (303-67) and time of possession (35-24), the game was pretty even throughout. BYU moved the ball through the air, and Baylor on the ground. The game had it all: fourth down conversions, turnovers, linebacker touchdowns, a missed field goal and a surprise onside kick.
The turning point came in the mid-third quarter with Baylor leading 24-14. BYU had just completed a long pass and then faced a third and six at the Bears’ 24-yard line. TJ Franklin had a beautiful, textbook swim move to get a stripe sack on the quarterback and Jalen Pitre recovered.
Four plays later, Abram Smith was in the end zone to put the Bears up three scores. All five Baylor touchdowns were scored by either former or current linebackers. The starting running back Smith, who played LB in 2020, had 188 yards and three scores while current linebacker Dillon Doyle, who transfer from Iowa, had both a rushing and receiving touchdown.
Most importantly, Baylor had zero penalties on the afternoon. Not only is that something they have struggled mightily with this season as they had 99 penalty yards in the Texas State opener and then 100 in the near collapse to Iowa State, but it is the first time ever in program history that the Bears have not been called for an infraction.
Baylor has a bye this week before facing some high flying offenses to close the season which includes all their in-state rivals, Kansas State on the road and the Sooners at home. The Bears should have shot to win every game, but will they be able to do enough to advance to the Big 12 title game?
I think they can, and if they win out then we will be having another CFP conversation a la 2019.
The Fun Belt
The Sun Belt has kicked off this new week of college football in style as Appalachian State upset the No. 15 Coastal Carolina Chanticleers 30-27. It is the Mountaineers’ first ranked upset win since their 2007 claim to fame upset over the No. 5 Michigan Wolverines at the Big House as an FCS power.
Louisiana hung on for a one-point, 28-27 victory at Arkansas State the next night which included a 99-yard touchdown run. It was the second 99-yard TD given up by the Red Wolves this season as the other was a Coastal Carolina pass three weeks earlier.
It eliminates any fun conversation we could have had about an undefeated Coastal Carolina in the Playoff or New Years Six games. It goes a step further by putting the Chanticleers on the outside looking in of a potential Sun Belt championship game. It would be the second year in a row that Coastal would be denied championship game participation in heart breaking fashion.
Arizona on my Mind
The Wildcats were in a great position to snap their 18-game losing streak: Pac-12 after dark at home on Friday night against a bad Washington team with a two possession lead and driving inside the Husky 30 to begin the fourth quarter.
Then third string QB Will Plummer tried to throw a screen pass that was intercepted by Tuli Letuligasenoa which spring-boarded a touchdown drive for the Huskies. Washington, who lost to Montana to start the year, would score another touchdown and hang on for the 21-16 win.
Arizona had a chance to get the ball back with just over two minutes to play, but instead were called for having too many men on the field. They got the ball back with 21 seconds instead and were unable to pull off a miracle.
Therefore, the losing streak extends to 19 games. These things tend happen when you are in the midst of a streak like this; anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
The Wildcats have five games left this year and the only opponent with a losing record is Cal. Though four of the Golden Bears’ five losses have come by a combined 21 points, so we will wait with anticipation.
Until Next Time
The good thing about a late newsletter is that you can relive last week and then roll right into all of today’s action. Thank you for reading; hope you enjoyed!