The scene is a little different in 2016: The crowd for today’s Pilot Flying J Battle at Bristol is expected to reach 160,000.
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Ohio State quarterback Cardale Jones ran for 99 yards last season in the Buckeyes’ 42-24 win at Virginia Tech.
Tennessee faced adversity at the beginning of the game, falling behind 14-0 in the first quarter, but it settled down and dominated the rest of the way. He became Tennessee’s all-time leading rushing quarterback.
After the game, Jones soaked in the atmosphere his team enjoyed.
This marked the first football game to take place at the Bristol Motor Speedway since the Washington Redskins and Philadelphia Eagles played a 1961 exhibition game here that drew 10,000 fans to a facility that seated 20,000 at the time. Tennessee fans were easily the majority in the mass of humanity that celebrated a weekend of music and football at a venue used to hosting motor sports.
After Virginia Tech grabbed that early lead thanks to touchdowns from Sam Rogers and Travon McMillan, the Hokies gave the Vols their first gift of the night. Tennessee (2-0) took advantage of Tech’s five fumbles, more than the Hokies had in any game in former coach Frank Beamer’s 29 seasons on Tech’s sideline, by scoring three touchdowns off the miscues. Previously, the record belonged to Michigan Stadium as 115,109 people witnessed Michigan taking on Notre Dame on September 7, 2013.
“This will never be replicated, never be duplicated”, Jones said of the spectacle.
“It’s a mentality to not want that ball to come out of your hands and it’s also an effort thing at practice we have to have hard practices on Tuesday and Wednesday, how mentality tough as a unit we are”, said Evans.
Dobbs also shined with his legs, running the ball 14 times for 106 yards and two more scores in the game. But an Evans fumble led to a 5-yard touchdown pass from Dobbs to Jauan Jennings early in the second quarter and that started a Volunteers’ string of 31 unanswered points.
“We talked about all week just being patient”, Dobbs said after the game.
“The one (snap) that was over the quarterback’s head was pretty bad”, Fuente said. We knew that we were going to have to score more than 14 points in order to win this ballgame. Meanwhile, Micah Abernathy broke the UT single-game record for fumbles recovered after scooping up three turnovers.
Tennessee had enough talent to overcome deficits of 13-3 against Appalachian State and 14-0 against Virginia Tech and beat those teams while not playing to its full potential, but the same approach may not work against Florida or Alabama at home or in hostile road environments at Georgia and Texas A&M. They’ve fumbled 10 times in two games, losing nine of them. “Obviously, we have to do a better job of teaching or emphasizing ball security, because it’s inadequate right now”. The senior leaders have got to step up and be more vocal on those days, make sure we get it right, because no one likes this feeling.
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Virginia Tech ran 73 plays compared to the Vols 65, but only two of Tennessee’s 17 drives lasted longer than three minutes, 22 seconds. Dobbs found Jennings in the end zone on the next play. Two plays later, he threw a 38-yard touchdown pass to Josh Malone to complete a four-play, 90-yard drive. “I think we feel good about what we did on the field and I don’t care about somebody talking about we dropped in the polls”.
