The crew chief (Tennessee coach Butch Jones) still has to make the proper adjustments to ensure the machine runs as well on lap 200 as it did on lap 1.
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“We made big plays and we just handled business”.
Joshua Dobbs passed for three touchdowns and ran for another two as Tennessee routed Virginia Tech, 45-24, in the Battle at Bristol.
In front of a record crowd of 156,990 at Bristol Motor Speedway, 17th-ranked Tennessee got its motors running after a slow start in the Battle of Bristol. A predominantly orange-clad crowd was quiet, their team resembling a vehicle that wrecked on the first turn in the first lap.
The Hokies’ challenge is to learn from a game that few expected them to win.
Volunteers quarterback Josh Dobbs was a spark. Meanwhile, Micah Abernathy broke the UT single-game record for fumbles recovered after scooping up three turnovers. During his football anthem “Boys of Fall”, he welcomed current Super Bowl champion and former Tennessee quarterback Peyton Manning onstage to autograph an acoustic guitar and give it away to one lucky fan in the crowd. Kicker Aaron Medley drilled a field goal and gave Tennessee a 17-14 lead, and then the Vols added five-yard touchdown run by Dobbs put the Vols up 24-14 at halftime.
Aside from a 90-yard drive that led to Tennessee’s tying touchdown, Dobbs’ 38-yard pass to Josh Malone, the Vols went 58 yards or less on five of their other six scoring drives. The nine lost fumbles through two games are two more than Tech lost all of last season.
Virginia Tech had a small fight on its hands early against Liberty but eventually pulled away for a 36-13 win last Saturday as a 31.5-point favorite. It also mixed in eight penalties for 101 yards, committing two penalties on two separate plays. Obviously, we turned the ball over entirely too many times.
“We’ve got to do a better job either teaching, or understanding or emphasizing ball security”, Hokies Coach Justin Fuente said. Dobbs also led Tennessee with 106 yards and two scores, while Jalen Hurd gained 99 yards on the ground.
McMillian paced the Hokies with 127 yards rushing and the score.
Tennessee: After averaging just below 3 yards per carry against Appalachian State, the Vols regrouped this week and ran the ball much more effectively. Now they get a pretty significant test in the Tennessee defense, and we’ll learn a lot about where the Hokies’ offense is right now and what kind of potential they have against quality opponents this season.
EVANS’ ENCORE: Trinity Valley (Texas) Community College transfer Jerod Evans threw four touchdown passes without an interception in his Virginia Tech debut. Tennessee DE Jonathan Kongbo (ankle/foot) left in the first quarter but was able to return.
One of the highest, yet unofficial, records for attendance at a college football game was all the way back in 1927, when 120,000 people gathered at Soldier Field to watch Notre Dame-USC.
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One thing didn’t need to be installed in the whirlwind of activity: the massive video unit suspended above the field, known as the “Colossus”.
