Hurd ran for 118 yards in the game and Dobbs threw for 192 yards and a touchdown, but the Vols’ offensive line struggled, Dobbs made some poor decisions with the ball and the ground game only averaged 3.0 yards per carry, with Dobbs finishing with minus-4 yards.
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After the Hokies opened the game with a 14-0 lead, the Volunteers closed out the first half with 24 unanswered points.
To a certain extent, the Vols were lucky.
But the other two broken records weren’t on the agenda. “It’s a game that will go down in history. Just have had a problem with it in the games”, running back Sam Rogers said.
Jones said the intensity against Virginia Tech was better than in the opener and the week of preparation was better. “I’ll have to look at the film and see, but that tailback is a big, powerful and talented young man and their quarterback runs the ball well and has good speed as well”. UT missed nine tackles against App State; the number might be about the same against the Hokies.
Now the Vols (2-0) return to their regular schedule. He closed the day hitting 17-of-29 passes for 223 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions, plus the game-winning rushing score. He ran 69 yards up the sideline for a touchdown with 2:48 left in the first quarter, extending Tech’s lead to 14-0.
After the game, Jones soaked in the atmosphere his team enjoyed. The game is also airing on a live stream online. He scored on a 5-yard quarterback draw and a 27-yard scamper on a zone-read option.
Dobbs, Jalen Hurd and Alvin Kamara injected more life into Tennessee’s running game before the end of the half.
The ramifications of that decision immediately came into effect as Arkansas glided 58 yards in four snaps to pull within 28-26, and a reverse pass from Keon Hatcher to Allen tied the game at 28-28 with 1:03 remaining. “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”.
“It’s a mentality to not want that ball to come out of your hands, but also, it’s an effort thing at practice”, said Evans, who noted the Hokies do some form of ball security drills, either a circuit or something else, in every practice. There was plenty of star power at the coin toss as Peyton Manning represented the Volunteers and Bruce Smith and Frank Beamer represented the Hokies.
“We knew that when we started the layouts for the locker rooms, we wanted to keep some elements of NASCAR intact, like the murals”, Caldwell said. That said, one of these teams is going to have to pass to win. “As you saw us last week, we were in a Bear front, we were in our base front, we were in some 50 front; we were very multiple and we moved around and stemmed around a lot and changed up our coverages”.
It helped the Vols get a second win on a historic night in Bristol.
“It was an incredible spectacle, ” Jones said.
After Tech’s defense forced a second straight three-and-out by Tennessee, Tech went right back to work with a nifty misdirection play.
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“It’s not easy getting road wins in college football”.
