The Tennessee Volunteers controlled the game Saturday against BYU from start to almost finish. That window at the end pushed the game to overtime. The Cougars went on to shock the Vols in two overtimes 26-23.
The end result of the loss for UT was the same in week two for Tennessee as it was week one.
Not all losses are created equal, but when the losses continue to mount, you don’t get moral victories or effort atta-boys. An L is a L. Period.
Here are my observations from Tennessee’s loss to BYU that sent UT to its first 0-2 start to a season since 1988, in my blog Vince’s View:
The End of the Game & OT
*The big pass play at the end of the game is obviously inexplicable, but it reflects the fragile psyche and confidence of players on this team, who as a collective unit, don’t have a winning mindset and approach to dominate and finish opponents.
*Micah Simon (BYU WR) easily getting past Alontae Taylor on that play wasn’t the only problem.Safety Nigel Warrior was late in coming over to cover and then took a bad angle that led to a missed tackle. Plus, BYU’s talented TE Matt Bushman was also wide open close to the middle of the field as Trevon Flowers, Theo Jackson and Quavaris Crouch all kept creeping forward and towards the sideline as he had a clean run by them. Why are they playing a QB scramble or a short route underneath with so little time left and so many yards they have to gain to reach field goal range? See the image below.
Big pass play at the end of regulation – BYU at UT / Credit: 99.1 The Sports Animal
*That bust by Taylor continues an alarming trend of players not knowing what they’re supposed to do, how to line-up at times and don’t understand situations.
*UT was fortunate throughout the game that BYU didn’t take advantage of several of those busted assignments. UT had other plays where they weren’t lined-up correctly and they had to call timeouts.
UT’s defense – BYU at UT / Credit: 99.1 The Sports Animal
*Either there are issues in teaching techniques, the players can’t comprehend the systems or they just don’t have enough players with high enough football intelligence.
*On the squib kick at the end of regulation, I didn’t understand LaTrell Bumphus fielding it and then just taking a knee to run out the final second of regulation (which should not have been there but the was stopped with a second left at home…think the final second runs off the clock if that was a UT kick with 5 seconds to go? Of course it would have.) Unless he was instructed to kneel down, you have to lateral that back to Ty Chandler or Marquez Callaway to try and make a play.
Pruitt
*The Vols had early juice and energy, which was a must. Pruitt was working hard to get them fired up in the pregame.
*I think part of being a head football coach, especially in today’s world, is the mental part of the game. It requires more than teaching football. With Pruitt admitting that last season he spent too much time on improving every little thing in the program and didn’t spend enough time on his players building relationships, you have to wonder if he’s spent much time, if any, on building confidence and establishing a winning mindset beyond just teaching football. Psychology is a part of coaching, especially young adults in college football. As a first-time head coach, that is something that perhaps hasn’t been worked on. I don’t know. But, clearly, Pruitt is learning
Defense
*Tennessee pressured BYU QB Zack Wilson much better than it did Dan Ellington of Georgia State last week.
*The Vols defense had 7 QH (QB hurries), 6 TFLs and 4 sacks for a combined total of 17. BYU combined for just 8, so UT was a +9 in those key stats that often reflect the line of scrimmage.
*Henry To’oto’o continues to impress as just a freshman ILB. He’s made some freshman mistakes, but he has great instincts, athleticism and physicality.
Offense
*Tennessee’s play-calling was questionable in key moments. A WR jet sweep on 4th and 1? Crossing routes three yards short of the sticks on third down? Where are the fade routes to your big, talented receivers to let them high point a ball in the redzone where you’ve struggled?
*That being said, Jim Chaney, overall adjusted to what his players can and can’t do, which is one of his strengths. He’s handcuffed by Guarantano’s current limitations and his offensive line not being what they hoped to this point.
*The offense showed resiliency to score a TD in OT after the end of regulation and the way BYU scored easily in the first OT.
*I like when UT goes up-tempo on offense, but it’s not very frequent.
*Tennessee was really effective with its outside runs, often the stretch zone, with Ty Chandler and Eric Gray, who were both fantastic. The offensive line does deserve some credit for that. The shorter rotation and giving five guys full series to work together (for the most part) had to help with continuity.
*Chandler ran the ball like a running back that didn’t want to lose his gig.
*Gray is elusive and showed some sick jump cuts in the game after using the spin move numerous times in the opener.
*Pruitt lamented the offense’s lack of a big back to get tough yards and fall forward after contact in short yardage, like BYU was able to do. If the offensive line was better, it could win some battles up front for either of those two backs to be effective, but that’s not the case, so a big back could help. Once Daniel Bituli returns at ILB, I could see a scenario where Jeremy Banks returns to RB to help in that area.
*WR Jauan Jennings was big-time in this game with tough catches and the spirit necessary to give the team a chance.
Guarantano
*Jarrett Guarantano made a number of clutch throws, including one in the first OT scoring drive, but his errors were costly and too frequent for a player with his experience, arm talent and coaching resources..
*He is consistently late in making throws which costs UT TDs (deep middle throw to a wide-open Jennings allowed time for a PBU) or puts the ball in harms way often (DWA 1st qtr throw into double-coverage, throw to Jennings at the goal line in 4th qtr) or they don’t allow receivers to run well after the catch
*Guarantano has often been staring down his receivers too often, missing open receivers, panicking at times with pressure in the pocket and too often calling audibles at the line scrimmage into plays that don’t work.
*In the image included in this post, you’ll see Guarantano’s decision to keep on a zone read where your job is to read the defensive end and either hand-off or run it. Despite the end not crashing in and an unblocked LB staring at him, he made his mind up that he was going to run it and try to make a play. Not surprisingly, it didn’t work.
Vols offense – BYU at UT / Credit: 99.1 The Sports Animal
*#2’s noticeable audibles in the game resulted in these new plays: 4-yd run, middle free blitzer and thrown away, incomplete pass on a late throw that could have been a TD and a 2-yard run
*Tom Luginbill of ESPN and SiriusXM said of Vols QB Jarrett Guarantano: “He’s a guy you win in spite of not because of.” He and Greg McElroy, both former quarterbacks, talked about Guarantano’s struggles inside and outside of the ESPN broadcast. Here’s my one-on-one visit with Tom Luginbill.
*I do like the growing check-down options Chaney is giving to Guarantano. Uncfortunately, some of them came on 3rd down and we’re executed sharply to get to the first down marker.
*We thought we inadvertently found out who the number two QB is, When BYU DL Zac Dawe tossed Guarantano’s shoe to the sideline, true freshman QB Brian Maurer started to run onto the field until he was stopped by Jeremy Pruitt. The officials gave Guarantano time to put his shoe back on since the BYU player tossed it. Pruitt said today Maurer isn’t the back-up quarterback and that he started to run out to the field on his own. Pruitt said he kind of liked that. If it’s not Maurer, than the backup QB must be redshirt freshman JT Shrout, except Pruitt wasn’t committal to naming someone. Pruitt stressed the importance of finding a backup quarterback. There just haven’t been opportunities to play them so far. As much as fans would like a QB switch, putting a QB in with the game in the balance that has zero game experience is not a Pruitt-type thing to do. Not yet at least.
Freshmen
*For the second straight game, Tennessee played 9 freshmen.
Freshman That Played vs. Georgia St Wanya Morris – OL (started) Henry To’oto’o – LB (started) Warren Burrell – CB (started) Eric Gray – RB Quavaris Crouch – LB Darnell Wright – OT Ramel Keyton – WR Jaylen McCullough – S Jerrod Means – WR
Freshman That Played vs. BYU Wanya Morris – OL Henry To’oto’o – LB (started) Warren Burrell – CB (started) Eric Gray – RB Quavaris Crouch – LB Darnell Wright – OT Ramel Keyton – WR Jaylen McCullough – S Roman Harrison – LB
“Reviewing the game from Saturday, offensively there were a lot of positives in the offensive line. It was probably the best that we’ve been able to run the football against a quality opponent in some time. There were lots of plays that were out there where I really felt like our running backs did a really good job making guys miss and finishing runs off. We probably left a few plays out there. We broke some balls down the field and didn’t finish at wide receiver, where we had a chance if we finished on a block down there, we could have went all the way to the end zone. In the throw game, we had an opportunity to create some explosive plays early and missed some during the game. If you look at it as a whole, we scored one touchdown in regulation and had several opportunities to create some explosive plays and we didn’t. We have to be able to do that. We got the ball in the red area a couple of times and came away with field goals.
Jeremy Pruitt – Vols HC / Credit: UT Athletics
“Defensively to me, there was lots of improvement and it’s going to continue to be that way based off of the players that we have, they’re going to continue to gain experience and each week you’ll probably see a couple of younger guys that’ll play more as the weeks go on. We’re still not forcing any turnovers, that’s one of the big things that in the last two weeks we’ve forced one turnover. I said this early on in the year that we really need to take care of the football offensively and we have to be opportunistic on defense. We have not done that in either game. The one disappointing thing for me defensively is that you play for 60 minutes and you give up one touchdown and then you go into overtime and you give up two in the overtime periods, so we have to figure out that and get it fixed. We have to create a little more depth up front at the linebacker position. As we move forward, we have some guys that we’re working there and they’re getting closer and closer. I really thought our snappers and holders and kickers did a nice job and they continue to do that. For two weeks in a row I feel like we’ve created an advantage in the kicking game by changing the field in kickoffs and in our punting game.
“When you look at UTC this week, I’m very familiar with these guys, especially their offensive and defensive coordinators. I’ve known both guys for several years and they really do a fantastic job. I’m familiar with the conference that they play in. If you look at them, they’re very well coached, have good players at all three levels on the defensive side of the ball. Their quarterback is a big guy that can spin the ball out there and can hurt you in the run game. What they do offensively is there is a lot of quarterback run element to it. They put a lot on the quarterback and they have big guys up front, they have returning running backs and a couple of good wide receivers out there.
“Defensively, they have some guys up front. They have two safeties that were preseason all-conference for their conference. They have a returning inside linebacker that had 98 tackles last year. These guys are used to winning. I’ve seen them play. A couple of years ago, my son played at Jacksonville State and I saw it first hand, these guys get after it. They played Jacksonville State last week and got after those guys pretty good.
“We have lots of things we can fix, but I feel like when you look at where our team was at in the first week and how much we improved from Week 1 to Week 2, that’s what we have to do. I’ve said it before, we have a young, inexperienced team at a lot positions, and to me that’s the type of improvement that we have to make from one week to the next and we have to continue to do that this week. How did we do that? To me it’s the effort that we gave at practice. I’ve said all along, we had a really good camp. And the difference in the first two games has been turning the football over and not getting turnovers, bottom line. We knew we were going to make some mistakes on defense, there’s no secret there. I think one thing that we did this past week is we called the game more aggressively on defense, which allowed our guys to play more aggressive. Did we make mistakes? Sure we did, but we made them moving forward instead of sitting back on our heels and that’s something that we can build on going forward.
“Offensively, we just have to be more consistent. We have to be more consistent up front, have to be more consistent at every position and that’s what everybody in our program is working on. You find out a lot about yourself and who you are in tough times. Obviously the first two games haven’t gone the way that anybody around here wants it to go. But those games are over with. All you can do from them is learn from them and take the lessons that you learned, the good and the bad, and move forward. The real character, who you are, kind of shows up in these times and I like the people in our program, I’ve said it all along. I like this team and I don’t believe the leadership in our program is going to waver one bit. We’re going to work hard and we have tremendous opportunities this week and moving forward for this year.”
On what is holding Jarrett Guarantano back:
“I don’t think anything is holding Jarrett back. Let me tell you, Jarrett Guarantano has practiced extremely well from spring to fall camp and has made some really nice plays in both games. Jarrett will tell you just like I’ll tell you, we all, myself included, have to raise our standards and expectations in this program and be a little more consistent. That’s everybody. He’s no different than anybody else.”
On if Guarantano hurt his hand or wrist and had an MRI:
“Yeah. He got his hand hit in the first quarter on a helmet. He’ll be fine this week.”
On what both he and Jarrett Guarantano can do to help manage the offense:
“I think one thing is we’ve had some pretty nice pockets most of the time, but there were a few times on Saturday when they rushed four guys that we had one guy get beat. That really collapsed the pocket, and there’s no time to throw the ball away. One time, we had a really nice drive going in the second quarter. The ball was on the 30-yard line, and it was first-and-10. We were going to take a play-action shot, and as soon as we turned around we get a sack, and then we tried to throw the ball away and get an intentional grounding. We’ve got to be more consistent up front. I think a lot of it from playing the quarterback position is getting your eyes on the right spot, moving pretty fast through your progressions and have a timing mechanism. He’s done a lot of nice things but so have a lot of people in our program, but there’s not much difference between winning and losing. When you look at Saturday’s game, there’s probably about 82 plays on offense and right about that on defense. You never know when the play is going to present itself that could decide the outcome of the game. That’s why you try to create the right habits at practice. You practice it until you don’t get it wrong. That’s what everybody in our program has got to do including him.”
On the level of improvement:
“These guys are going to continue to improve. We’ve got lots of young guys in our program that maybe weren’t ready to play in the first game, they may not be ready to play the second game. We had some guys that weren’t ready in the first game or second game, but we had to play them, if that makes sense. That’s kind of where we’re at as a program, there’s lots of opportunity here. We’ll continue to play some young guys, and we’ll play more and more guys as the year goes. There’s a little bit that comes with growing as a football player. All of these guys that we signed in this last year’s class all have the potential to be really good football players, but every one of them were better football players in their senior year in high school than their freshman year in high school. That’ll be the same way at Tennessee; they’ll continue to grow, develop, improve as football players as we go. Probably, if you look, Wanya (Morris) was here during the spring, Warren Burrell was here during the spring and got to participate in all the practice. Quavaris Crouch was here during the spring but he played inside linebacker based on depth issues and trying to get our best 11 on the field. It helps to get those extra 15 practices, and I think it showed with those guys. Eric Gray was here. He didn’t participate in the practices, but he got the mental reps, so he’s a little bit further along. Some of the other guys that weren’t here during the spring, you can see that it’s about that time, because of those 15 extra practices, where were at in the season, some of the other guys will start being able to contribute which will provide us some depth.”
On if there’s anything that needs to be done differently after the first two weeks of the season:
“Yeah, absolutely. I think just defensively, we had seven starters coming back from last year’s defense, which wasn’t a very good defense. We lose Emmit Gooden, (Daniel) Bituli, (Baylen) Buchanan, and Bryce Thompson – now were down to three guys. There’s tons of inexperience on that side of the ball. And we lost those guys later on in fall camp, it wasn’t like we lost them early on. Probably in the first game, we didn’t carry enough weapons into the game. When I say weapons, I’m talking about things that you can call to be aggressive and put the other team on their heels. One of the reasons we didn’t do that is because we knew we couldn’t execute it exactly right. I felt that in that game, defense especially, we played on our heels. That’s never how I’ve ever coached, that’s never how we’ve played any games here, that’s never how we practice anything that we do. So, in this game we went the other way and said that we probably aren’t going to get some of this stuff right, but we’re going to be aggressive, were going to try to throw marbles at the quarterback and the running backs and give our kids a chance, and call the game aggressively. I think it showed on Saturday. You always go back and look on what you can do better. For me the first thing I’d say is the long pass play. Could I have called a timeout before the ball was snapped? I’m always trying to look and see how I can improve and try and get it right. There’s no doubt we went for it three times on fourth down. One of them we scored a touchdown, two of them we didn’t. You’ve got fourth-and-a-foot to win a game. In my opinion, were at a point in our program where we want to make sure that were trying to create an identity and that we’re coming out there to win football games. We have to get those. We have to get fourth-and-a-foot twice, and we didn’t. I always do it, and I’ll continue to do it, but I think we have to look in the mirror and see what we can do better, and everybody’s doing that.”
On separation of the offensive line and if they stood out:
“Well we ran the ball better offensively, but if you look at it we had one o-lineman we felt like graded a winner, so we have a long way to go to get to where we need to be, and there’s lots of inconsistencies there and we got to continue to work hard to develop there. You know if you look at it, lots of times in the run game we had a hat for hat, so if they got four guys, we got four guys to block for four guys. Sometimes we gained five yards, sometimes we gained seven, sometimes we gained 10, and sometimes we lost one or two yards when we got one guy to block everybody right. There’s lots of times when they snapped the ball they had three guys to block four, sometimes they didn’t gain any yards, as the game went sometimes they gained three, four, five, six and they got three to block four, so we got to improve on both sides of the ball.”
On Guarantano’s shoe coming off, and what Brian Mauer is doing to be a good backup:
“Well he’s not the backup, first of all, he was a guy that saw that the quarterback came out so he ran on the field, which I kind of like. So, we didn’t tell anybody to go in or come out but he did run out on the field, I noticed that as I was coming off the field.”
On the if it’s important to get other QBs opportunities this week:
“Well it’s been important the entire time. The opportunity has not presented itself. You know, we said in the first game and the second game that if the opportunity presented itself we wanted one or both quarterbacks in the game. We’ve got to create a backup quarterback and you know there’s no doubt, if you’ve been around our program the last six months, who the best quarterback on our team is, but there’s also no doubt that sometimes after you get under the lights a little bit it’s interesting to see how the guys play. We got to get both these guys live game opportunity, so we can see.”
On what he’s learned about himself and his team in these last two weeks:
“Well, I know myself, I’ve been myself for a long time. We’re not going to flinch, we’re going to keep working, that’s what we do, right? The men on our staff are the same way. We’ve got a strong group of coaches that know how to win. We’ve been there, we’ve done it, we know what it takes. We’ve got to share our knowledge with our players. We’ve got to figure out why, maybe, we grade 72 percent instead of 88 percent? Why do we play a technique the right way for three or four plays and then we don’t play the technique right for a play? We’ve got to figure that out, we’ve got to share our knowledge with our players, we’ve got to get them to be at their best. And our guys will, and we’ve got to continue to do that. It’s a growing process. But, to me, I want to see how much we improve from this past week to this next week. To me, that’s a goal for this week, if we can do it again. And, I said that, if we do that, the wins and losses will take care of themselves. I truly believe that.”
On creating depth at linebacker and if Daniel Bituli is any closer to playing:
“Well, there is nobody else. Saturday, we dressed two scholarship tailbacks that were going to be able to play and four inside linebackers. So, we’re very thin at certain positions, and we’ve been that way. If we get a couple of injuries there, we’ve had to bounce guys back and forth, just to give us an opportunity. Hopefully, Daniel will be able to take some reps this week. Like I said, he was close last week. Daniel had a really good spring, and he was having a really good fall camp, but when he comes back, because he’s missed sixteen days of practice, it’s not going to be like where he left off. It’s going to take a little bit to get him back going, to make sure he’s in the right shape and conditioned. You can’t just walk out there from not practicing and start practicing every day like you haven’t missed anything. But we should be able to get him back some this week.”
On how LaTrell Bumphus has bought in to his spot on the defensive line and what he does well:
“I thought there were two guys on our defense this week that really just try to do what the coaches ask them to do, they don’t try to do anything else. I think LaTrell is one, and I think Theo Jackson is another guy. If you tell them to do it a certain way, that’s what they try to do, they don’t ask any questions, they just go and try to do it, and I think it’s why both of them actually played pretty well in this game. We’ll get more and more guys that buy in to doing that, and I’m going to tell you this, when I woke up Saturday morning, I had it in my mindset that I’m going to do everything I can to get our team to be the best they can possibly be. The kids that made mistakes on Saturday, which was everybody on our team, we all do, coaches too, nobody woke up and said, ‘hey, I’m going to make sure I mess this up.’ Everybody has the right intentions. But you’ve got to create the right habits, and I think both of those guys are two guys that are very good examples of guys that have really tried to do exactly what we’ve asked them to. LaTrell Bumphus, when we started fall camp, he was fourth team. He was fourth team. He’s a guy that plays on kickoff return, he’s a guy that helps us on the punt team. So, we’ve got to get more guys doing things like LaTrell and Theo.
On where the team can improve moving forward:
“Well, I think if you practice the right way, if you can develop the right habits at practice – that’s what we’re trying to do – the consistencies. I mean look at our football team, especially defensively. Darrell Taylor, Daniel Bituli’s not been out there, and the DBs, Baylen Buchanan has not been out there, you got Nigel Warrior, Theo Jackson. There’s not a lot of older guys on defense. A lot of youth. So, these guys are coming into a program, probably a little bit overwhelmed a bit, trying to figure out exactly how a coach wants it done, learning what they’re supposed to do. Also, learning how to practice to the standard and expectations and then they have to learn what an opponent does. We’re going to better at that every week. Every week, the games going to slow down to them. We’re going to create a little more depth, a little bit more competition. It’s going to make us a better football team defensively. Same thing offensively. We’ve got some very good young prospects on offense and they’re going to continue, as we go through this season, to do it the right way, to work at practice, to create the right habits. We’re going to improve on both sides of the ball. Problem is, everybody else is doing the same thing we’re doing. Hey, maybe, based off age, they’re a little further along and don’t have as far as they can go. We’ve got a long ways before we can hit our ceiling based off our football team. But, we’ve got to work hard every week to continue to get there.”
On what issues he noticed after watching film from BYU game:
“Just like Saturday, we barely dive right there and their right guard gets beat across his face when he knows the ball is running to the left. Hey, maybe this guy is better than me, maybe he’s bigger, stronger than me, but if I’m the right guard, I’m going to take my left foot, put it on the center’s right foot, where there is no A-gap, where the guy can’t beat me across my face because we’ve got the other guys blocked right there. Or, maybe the next time, I think they’re six minutes left in the game, we run the exact same call, when we kind of run the man around, which hey, on fourth-and-one or fourth-and-a-foot, hey maybe the Z-around is not the best call. But, you set it with our personnel, with who we are and who they are. I think it’s a pretty good call – we ran it earlier in the game and gained 11 yards on it – against the exact same call BYU had called. But we had a couple of guys that didn’t block it the same way. They block it the right way the first time, but get the exact same look and we don’t do it the right way the second time. Why is that? That’s obviously on us as coaches (to figure out) why the inconsistencies? We’re 0-2, instead of 2-0 because we have these issues.”
Tennessee head coach Jeremy Pruitt held his weekly Monday post-practice press conference to preview the upcoming game. This week, UT hosts Chattanooga on Saturday.
Vol;s HC Jeremy Pruitt / Credit: 99.1 The Sports Animal
Luke Bryan scored the 23rd No. 1 single of his career as “Knockin’ Boots” ascended to the top of both the Billboard Country Airplay chart and the Mediabase chart this week.
Co-penned by Hillary Lindsey, Gordie Sampson and Jon Nite, “Knockin’ Boots” is the lead single from Luke’s upcoming seventh studio album, which is tentatively slated to drop before the end of the year.
“Huge thank you to fans, radio and my team for this #1,” said Luke via Twitter. “I think this song is so fun and it’s such a blast singing it. Again thank you to everyone who supports me and allows me to do what I love. Shout out to writers @Gordie_Sampson, Hillary Lindsey, and Jon Nite. Love y’all.”
Huge thank you to fans, radio and my team for this #1. I think this song is so fun and it’s such a blast singing it. Again thank you to everyone who supports me and allows me to do what I love. Shout out to writers @Gordie_Sampson, Hillary Lindsey, and Jon Nite. Love y’all. pic.twitter.com/qBBqqx34mV
Tennessee Athletics announced its six-person 2019 induction class for the University of Tennessee Athletics Hall of Fame Monday. The class includes Doug Dickey (coach/administrator), R.A. Dickey (baseball), Christine Magnuson (women’s swimming), Charles A. “Gus” Manning (administrator), Tony Parrilla (men’s track & field) and Candace Parker (women’s basketball).
The Class of 2019 will be celebrated during the weekend of Oct. 25-26—which coincides with Tennessee’s home football game against South Carolina—and the Hall of Fame activities will include an induction dinner at the Student Union on campus on the evening of Friday, Oct. 25. The inductees also will be recognized on the field at Neyland Stadium during the football game the following day.
Tickets for the induction dinner cost $75 and will go on sale next week.
“This collection of Tennessee legends is certainly worthy of this extraordinary honor,” Tennessee Director of Athletics and 2017 Hall of Fame inductee Phillip Fulmer said. “During their respective careers as Vols and Lady Vols, R.A. Dickey, Christine Magnuson, Tony Parrilla and Candace Parker not only exemplified excellence in competition and service, but also excellence in sportsmanship. They each accomplished great things individually while also taking pride in being great teammates and ambassadors for the University of Tennessee.
“As our head football coach, Doug Dickey won a national championship and introduced many of our treasured Tennessee traditions. And later, as athletics director, he oversaw an era of unprecedented growth and success. His legacy serves as a connection between our past and our future.
“Gus Manning‘s service as an administrator dates back to his days one of General Neyland’s most trusted aides. Gus has impacted many lives, launched many careers and shaped Tennessee’s status as a standard bearer for how an intercollegiate athletics department should function.”
The purpose of the Tennessee Athletics Hall of Fame is to recognize and honor individuals who have made outstanding contributions to Tennessee Athletics.
“It’s wonderful to celebrate our legendary athletes, coaches and administrators,” Fulmer said. “We want to allow our fans to be a part of this memorable evening, and I hope many of them will join us on Oct. 25.”
Membership in the University of Tennessee Athletics Hall of Fame is based on a former student-athlete’s intercollegiate career at the University of Tennessee. Student-athletes are eligible for induction 10 years after their collegiate eligibility expires, and staff are eligible five years after retirement from or leaving employment of the University of Tennessee. Student-athletes and/or staff may be inducted posthumously.
DOUG DICKEY COACH/ADMINISTRATOR | 1964-69, 1985-2003
In six years as head coach, from 1964 through 1969, Doug Dickey rebuilt the Tennessee football program and guided the Vols to a national championship and two Southeastern Conference titles. He also introduced UT’s famous checkerboard end zones and the “Power T” logo. As the university’s athletics director for 18 years starting in 1985, he managed a growing budget and administered a massive facilities overhaul. During his tenure as AD, Big Orange teams brought home 10 national championships, 38 SEC titles and captured more than 500 first-team All-America honors while positioning Tennessee as a beacon of intercollegiate athletics excellence.
R.A. DICKEY BASEBALL | 1994-96
R.A. Dickey is one of the most decorated pitchers in the history of Tennessee baseball. The Nashville native is the program’s only three-time first-team All-American (1994-1996) and was named the National Freshman of the Year in 1994 by Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball Newspaper after posting a school-record 15 wins. Dickey followed up his sensational freshman season by helping lead Tennessee to the 1995 College World Series, the program’s second overall appearance and first in 44 years. Dickey still holds program records for career victories (38), games started (54) and innings pitched (434.0), while also ranking second in career strikeouts (345).
CHARLES A. “GUS” MANNING ADMINISTRATOR | 1951-2000 Gus Manning held a plethora of roles during his nearly 50 years of service to the University of Tennessee, including administrative assistant, publicity director, ticket manager, business manager to assistant, associate and senior associate athletics director. The Knoxville native served eight ADs and 11 head football coaches during his career at UT. He attended 608 consecutive Tennessee football games from 1951 to 2003 and also attended 455 consecutive Tennessee football home games, a streak that ended in 2017. From 1960-2016, Manning co-hosted “The Locker Room” radio show which aired on The Vol Network on Tennessee football gamedays and remains the longest, continuous-running sports radio show in the country.
CHRISTINE MAGNUSON WOMEN’S SWIMMING & DIVING | 2005-08
Christine Magnuson stands as one of the most decorated women in Tennessee swimming & diving history. Magnuson was the 2008 NCAA champion in the 100-yard butterfly and garnered several honors that year, including 2008 SEC Swimmer of the Year and 2008 SEC Scholar Athlete of the Year. She also received the 2008 SEC Commissioners Trophy as the high point-scorer at the SEC Championship meet. An Illinois native, she was a 23-time All-American and a three-time All-SEC performer. Magnuson also was a four-time SEC Champion in three different events (50 free, 100 free, 100 fly) during her career on Rocky Top.
TONY PARRILLA MEN’S TRACK & FIELD | 1991-94
Tennessee track & field great Tony Parrilla won four NCAA 800-meter titles—three outdoor (1992, 1993, 1994) and one indoor (1994) —during his career as a Volunteer. The Homestead, Florida, native was a nine-time SEC champion, and he captured the outdoor 800-meter title all four years of his career. Parrilla was a 10-time All-American and was named the 1994 SEC Men’s Track & Field Outdoor Athlete of the Year. His oldest son, Jose Parrilla, was a member of Tennessee’s track & field team for two seasons from 2017-19.
CANDACE PARKER WOMEN’S BASKETBALL | 2005-08
One of only six Lady Vol basketball players to have her jersey hung in the rafters of Thompson-Boling Arena, Candace Parker led Tennessee to back-to-back national championships in 2007 and 2008 and was named NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player both years. The Naperville, Ill., native was a two-time recipient of both the John R. Wooden National Player of the Year Award and the USBWA National Player of the Year Award. She also was a three-time All-American and All-SEC honoree, ranks third on Tennessee’s all-time scoring list with 2,137 career points and was the first woman to dunk in an NCAA Tournament game, doing so twice vs. Army on March 19, 2006. She finished with a school-record seven slams during her career.
To be inducted into the University of Tennessee Athletics Hall of Fame, selection criteria includes the following areas of consideration:
College graduate or departed the university in good academic standing
Olympian
All-American
National Team Member
All-SEC (minimum of two times)
Conference or National Player/Athlete of the Year
University, American or World-Record holder
SEC Champion
AIAW or NCAA Champion or Top-4 finish
Criteria for staff includes:
Provided outstanding service to Tennessee Athletics
Luke Combs dropped a new video for his current single, “Even Though I’m Leaving,” which features the North Carolina native performing the song live for the first time.
Luke is trying to score his seventh consecutive No. 1 single with the release of the new tune. Penned by Luke, Wyatt B. Durrette and Ray Fulcher, “Even Though I’m Leaving” is featured on Luke’s 2019 EP, The Prequel.
“‘Even Though I’m Leaving’ was the first song I wrote with Wyatt Durrette, who I wrote ‘Beautiful Crazy’ with, and my buddy Ray, who I write with a lot—it was our first time writing with Wyatt, and, man, it’s just one of those tunes that . . . Wyatt, he’s a dad and he has written a lot of stuff about being a dad, and you kind of wanted to just tap into that thing,” says Luke. “Sometimes when you sit down to write, it may not be necessarily a story about yourself, it may be a story about your co-writer or a friend of yours or your mom or somebody like that. And so it was just kind of one of those things where he was like, “Hey man, I’m in the mood to write like a dad song.’ And I had had that idea in my phone for awhile and it was a tough write too. Really had to work at it. It wasn’t one of those songs that just kind of came out. It was definitely more of a construction project than just . . . because sometimes you get in there and a song just kind of writes itself. But that one was tough. We wanted to get it right and make sure that people could relate to it and see a bit of themselves in it. And I think we did a good job of that.”
Luke is first country artist in history whose first six singles have reached No. 1: “Hurricane,” “When It Rains It Pours,” “One Number Away,” “She Got the Best of Me,” “Beautiful Crazy” and “Beer Never Broke My Heart.” Luke recently made history as the first artist to simultaneously top all five Billboard country charts for multiple weeks: Top Country Albums, Hot Country Songs, Country Airplay, Country Streaming Songs and Country Digital Song Sales.
Watch the new video for “Even Though I’m Leaving” below.
Little Big Town announced a new album, single and tour on Sept. 9.
LBT will release their ninth studio album, Nightfall, on Jan 17. Buoyed by lead single, “Over Drinking,” which was penned by Jesse Frasure, Cary Barlowe, Hillary Lindsey, Ashley Gorley and Steph Jones, the upcoming album follows 2017’s The Breaker, which spawned the No. 1 hit, “Better Man.”
In addition, the foursome will embark on a 34-date tour dubbed The Nightfall Tour, which kicks off on Jan. 16 in New York and makes additional stops in Philadelphia, Boston, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Chicago, L.A. Denver and more. Caitlyn Smith will serve as support. Ticket pre-sale for the tour begins at noon ET on Sept. 9. General tickets go on sale on Sept. 13 at 10 a.m. local time (Carnegie Hall ticket sale begins at 11 a.m. ET).
Listen to “Over Drinking” below.
The Nightfall Tour
Jan. 16 | New York, NY |Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall
Jan. 17 | New York, NY | Apollo Theater
Jan. 18 | New York, NY | Apollo Theater
Jan. 30 | Philadelphia, PA | The Met Philadelphia
Jan. 31 | Philadelphia, PA | The Met Philadelphia
Feb. 01 | Pittsburgh, PA | Benedum Center
Feb. 07 | Boston, MA | Boch Center Wang Theatre
Feb. 08 | Boston, MA | Boch Center Wang Theatre
Feb. 14 | Cincinnati, OH | Taft Theatre
Feb. 15 | Cincinnati, OH | Taft Theatre
Feb. 20 | St. Louis, MO | Fabulous Fox Theatre
Feb. 21 | Indianapolis, IN | Murat Theatre
Feb. 22 | Indianapolis, IN | Murat Theatre
Feb. 26 | Tampa, FL Ruth | Eckerd Hall
Feb. 27 | Tampa, FL Ruth | Eckerd Hall
March 05 | Charleston, SC | Charleston Gaillard Center
March 06 | Charleston, SC | Charleston Gaillard Center
March 07 | Atlanta, GA | Fox Theatre
March 12 | Detroit, MI | Fox Theatre
March 13 | Chicago, IL | The Chicago Theatre
March 14 | Chicago, IL | The Chicago Theatre
March 27 | Salt Lake City, | UTEccles Theater
March 28 | Salt Lake City, | UT Eccles Theater
April 09 | Seattle, WA | The Paramount Theatre
April 10 | Seattle, WA | The Paramount Theatre
April 15 | Portland, OR | Keller Auditorium
April 17 | Oakland, CA | Fox Theater-Oakland
April 18 | Oakland, CA | Fox Theater-Oakland
April 23 | Los Angeles, CA | The Theatre At Ace Hotel
April 24 | Los Angeles, CA | The Theatre At Ace Hotel
April 26 | Las Vegas, NV | The Colosseum at Caesars Palace
Jason Aldean will try to score the 24th No. 1 single of his career with the release of “We Back” on Sept. 9. The new track serves as the lead single from Jason’s newly announced album, 9, which is set to drop on Nov. 22.
“Early on I always thought if we ever got to make nine albums, I’m going to call it 9,” says Jason. “It was my baseball number growing up, and it’s just kind of always been my lucky number. I remember cutting the first album and thinking, ‘That’s forever away,’ and now here we are. I don’t know, it’s really special we made it this far—so, it’s more for me than anybody else—but, it means a lot.”
Since releasing his self-titled debut album in 2005, Jason has dropped new albums at a prolific rate—never waiting more than two calendar years between projects. Jason’s most recent album, 2018’s Rearview Town, spawned four No. 1 hits, including the title track, “You Make It Easy,” “Drowns the Whiskey” and “Girl Like You.”
In addition to releasing “We Back,” Jason dropped three more new tracks from 9, including “Blame It On You,” “I Don’t Drink Anymore” and “Keep It Small Town.”
“When I came into country music and made my mark, it was with a banger,” Jason says. “But we haven’t put out a lot of that stuff over the last couple years. So we got [“We Back”], and to me it just says what it says: ‘Thought we were gone, but you’re wrong—now it’s on.’”
Blake Shelton and Trace Adkins raise a little hell in the new video for “Hell Right.”
The longtime friends enjoy a few adult beverages at a field party, complete with a bit of rodeo work, noodling and exploding fruit. Blake’s new single, which features vocals from Trace, was penned by David Garcia, Brett Tyler and Michael Hardy, who also appears in the video.
“I decided it would be great to have Trace Adkins on this [song] just because he’s got that low, deep, big voice and he’s so great at the ad-lib stuff,” says Blake. “He just brings a certain quality to any recording that nobody else can touch. The guy’s got so much personality in his voice and the way he sings, and I still think that he’s one of the most underrated country artists out there, so I called him and asked if he would be on the record with me and he said something that was close to ‘hell right,’ but it was a different cuss word.”
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Despite 154 rushing yards from junior Ty Chandler and a career-high-tying two receiving touchdowns from senior Jauan Jennings, Tennessee fell, 29-26, in double-overtime to BYU Saturday at Neyland Stadium.
With less than a minute remaining in regulation, BYU drove 68 yards in five plays before Jake Oldroyd nailed the game-tying field goal with one second left on the clock.
In the first overtime, the teams traded touchdowns, with BYU scoring first and the Vols responding with a 13-yard strike from Jarrett Guarantano to Jennings to knot the score at 23-23.
In double-overtime, the Vols settled for a field goal following a three-and-out. On BYU’s drive, Ty’Son Williams pushed his way into the endzone to clinch the 29-26 victory for the Cougars.
The Vols fall to 0-2 and will host Chattanooga next Saturday for a noon ET kickoff on SEC Network.
Tennessee kicker Brent Cimaglia tied a career-high with four made field goals, upping his season total to seven made tries on seven attempts.
On the defensive side of the ball, the Vols held BYU less than 300 yards of total offense in regulation, while tallying four sacks and six tackles for loss on the night.
Junior LaTrell Bumphus, had a stand out performance with two sacks, while junior Theo Jackson led UT with nine total tackles.
The Vols got things started in the scoring department Saturday with a 15-play, 80-yard drive that ate 7:15 off the clock. The drive was capped off by a five-yard deflected pass from quarterback Jarrett Guarantano to Jennings on fourth down.
The drive was UT’s second scoring drive of 15 plays or more on the season.
BYU responded with a drive of its own into the red zone. The Cougars were forced to settle for a field goal, following an impressive stand that included a sack from freshman Greg Emerson.
Tennessee regained its seven-point advantage at 10-3, when Cimaglia nailed a 51-yard field goal, tying his career long.
Following a third punt in four drives for BYU, UT closed the first half with a second Cimaglia field goal – this time from 39 yards – to give the Orange and White a 13-3 lead at the break.
Out of the locker room, BYU forced an interception on Tennessee’s first drive of the half. On the ensuing possession, Williams took a carry on third down and scampered 16 yards to the end zone to cut the UT advantage to 13-10.
Following four consecutive punts between the teams, UT finished off a 14-play, 77-yard drive with Cimaglia’s third field goal of the contest to increase the Big Orange lead to 16-10.
The Cougars responded with a 10-plus play drive of their own to cut the UT lead back to three following Oldroyd’s second field goal of the evening.
On the ensuing possession, Tennessee was forced to punt with a minute remaining, setting up BYU’s game-tying drive.
![Little Big Town Announces New Album, New Tour & New Single, “Over Drinking” [Listen]](https://cdn.socast.io/6616/sites/602/2019/09/09110054/Little-Big-Town-TA.jpg#aqua_resizer_image_not_local)
![Jason Aldean Drops 4 New Songs, Including Lead Single, “We Back,” From Newly Announced Album, “9” [Listen]](https://cdn.socast.io/6616/sites/602/2019/09/09100747/Jason-Aldean-TA1.jpg#aqua_resizer_image_not_local)
