Appalachian State exposed Tennessee: The Vols, ranked No. 9 in the polls and picked to win the SEC East, were ineffective on offense and presented nearly no downfield threat in the passing game. In receiving, Shaedon Meadors and Jaquil Capel will have to play harder and efficient to help the team in pulling an upset against Tennessee.
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Seeing Hurd with control of the football was a welcome sight to Dobbs.
“I feel like it was a lesson learned”, Tennessee linebacker Darrin Kirkland Jr. said. “We’re all just hungry to make plays out there”. Absolutely. And I can guarantee you this: “We will get them corrected”. “It’s going to sting for a while”. Lamb threw for one touchdown and ran for another. Cox rushed for 1,423 yards and nine touchdowns last season. Tennessee: Josh Dobbs 16-29-1-192.
Alex McGough completed 23 of 46 passes for 263 yards and three interceptions for FIU (0-1). “We ask a lot of Micah”, noted Jones. But he was happy with the perseverance. “I think in ’07, we probably got overlooked a little bit”. “They didn’t quit”, Jones said.
But you had to wonder: How could a game that was supposed to be so one-sided go so wrong for the favorites? We didn’t play our best football.
VOLS’ NEW Defence: Thursday’s game marks the debut performance for new Tennessee defensive co-ordinator Bob Shoop, who held the same position at Vanderbilt from 2011-13 and at Penn State from 2014-15. Below, we have every touchdown the Vols score in the game. Two huge negatives here were the muffed punt by Cameron Sutton and the long punt return given up midway thru the fourth quarter. Appalachian State redshirt freshman kicker Michael Rubino, who earlier missed an extra point, was wide right on a 42-yard field goal attempt with 5:24 remaining.
It was a tough pill to swallow for Appalachian State, who return home having to wonder about a good handful of missed opportunities.
Appalachian State will host Old Dominion out of Conference USA on September 10th before the Miami Hurricanes travel to Boone on September 17th. “They came out here and fought”.
And it’s true that we all tend to overreact based on what we see in the first week of the college football season. “If he’ll just swing and kick it, he’s got a great leg”.
The Tennessee offense struggled for most of the night, managing only two field goals in the first three quarters. Five plays later, Lamb scored on a 5-yard keeper to account for a 7-0 lead.
The Mountaineers led the game 13-6 heading into the fourth quarter. Dobbs’ deep pass to Josh Smith was ruled incomplete after replay, but it shouldn’t have happened since the Volunteers appeared to have run the next play. Appalachian State has won 17 of its last 19 games.
Appalachian State, which stunned a top-five MI team in 2007, will be looking for history to repeat itself by upsetting the Vols in Knoxville. Tennessee’s No. 9 ranking is its highest in the preseason poll since being No. 3 to start 2005.
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The Mountaineers finished last season sixth in the nation in rushing (Tennessee came in 21 in that category). His 4,088 career yards rushing rank him second among all active FBS players, behind only San Diego State’s Donnel Pumphrey.
