Time To Talk A Little Volunteer Magic

Anyone who's followed my blog for the past few years is very much aware that I am a passionate college football fan. One of those annoying ones who will watch any game, any time during the season and will re-watch particular favorites on the DVR the other nine months of the year. And anyone who knows me on any level is very well aware that my LOVE is reserved for only one team and that's the Tennessee Volunteers. I come by it naturally--Tennessee born and bred with practically every member of my family sporting orange and white. And when I was a wild child, doing theater up and down the eastern seaboard, I perfected my love of the Vols through two things--understanding the game of football in a way few women back then did, and bartending at a sports bar in Florida, where for one week every fall I was the most unpopular girl with the busiest bar in the Florida Keys. 

No matter how long I tended bar or where, I have never worn any colors but my own school's.Every bar owner who interviewed me for a job, I told two things. First, I will double your Saturday day shift business from August to April. (Like college hoops too--who doesn't?) And second, I will never wear any gear other than Volunteers gear. The last bar owner was skeptical, seeing as Ohio State is only a few minutes away. But after the first two weeks of football season, he bought in--just like all the others did.

Unfortunately, being a Vols fan hasn't been easy, especially over the last decade. After a series of epic and abysmal hiring decisions by the University of Tennessee AD, the Vols' two biggest rivalries have unprecedented losing streaks. We've lost nine in a row to Alabama, and eleven in a row to the Florida Gators. Not because those teams are always so vastly superior, in my opinion, but because of the miasma of depression and failure that seeped like Legionnaire's disease into the sanctum sanctorum known as Neyland Stadium. 

But suddenly things are different up on the Hill.

Any real football fan who isn't blinded by mindless team bias knows that Butch Jones has been building a monster on Rocky Top. And while some Vols fans and the sports media were hyping Tennessee last summer, I went on record with Ryan McGee at ESPN during a substitute gig hosting Paul Finebaum`that I thought the Vols would go 9-4, but a couple of lucky breaks could take them to 11-2.

Sometimes it sucks to be right.

But I also told Ryan that THIS year would be the Volunteers' coming out party. And man--it sure is starting to look that way. Seventeen starters return from a team that last year was too inexperienced to make certain those couple of balls bounced their way. That includes probably the strongest overall backfield in the SEC, a veteran defensive unit that's chomping at the bit under new Defensive Coordinator Bob Shoop, and the top special teams unit in the country in 2015. The schedule is favorable with both Florida and Alabama coming to Neyland, a major out of conference matchup with Virginia Tech slated for the 'neutral site' of Bristol Motor Speedway, just up the road from Knoxville. and the SEC East currently in coaching flux.

In the words of Rod Gilmore as Evan Berry sliced up Northwestern with a 100-yard interception return for a touchdown with 8 seconds to go in the Outback Bowl a few months ago: "2016 is going to be a good one for the Vols if it keeps rolling like this!"



Why thank you--yes it is rolling...rolling...rolling, and I don't mean the Tide.

I have a lot of friends. Many--okay, most--of them are football freaks like me. The cornerstone of our friendship is based on and around football. But there's a catch. While we all love our respective teams, we try to keep the fangurl blindness out of it. Do we backslid into 'my team is better than yours'? Of course we do. But we don't lose our minds over a little 'Alabama sucks' or "Vols choke again'. We can discuss each other's teams and players knowledgably and without prejudice. And I gotta tell you something--

The rest of the SEC is starting to take notice.

Don't believe me? If you've never met LSU Dad, you should. His videos are both insightful and hilarious. And this is what HE thinks:

Sports media makes fun of Butch Jones and his cliches, and I have to admit--I got a little tired of "brick by brick" and "analytics" and some of his other favorite sayings too. But it's funny--this year, Butch Jones doesn't seem to be as hung up on those cliches. It's like he used them to mask what was really going on behind the scenes, and now he knows that...well...he doesn't have to. Because he can't. Offseason moves so far have been huge. Keeping Alvin Kamara, Cam Sutton, and my hometown, same high school (Northeast Eagles in Clarksville!) favorite Jalen Maybin-Reeves was a HUGE win for UT--bigger than signing some of the new recruits, frankly. Hiring Bob Shoop was another massive power play.

But here's why things are different on the Hill.

Today is UT's graduation. We are literally sixteen weeks away from opening kickoff. Sixteen weeks and seven hours from now, the college football season will begin. I've been a Vols fan for longer than I will admit--birth, most likely--and I have to tell you: it's been painful to root for UT the past ten years or so. Literally PAINFUL. Even the past couple of years, when our way-too-young team started to close in on the season, the doubts would begin--not only for the fans, but the players. And why not? Eleven losses in a row to Florida. Nine losses in a row to Alabama. These teams are arguably our biggest rivals. And as those circled dates drew closer on the calendar every year, the same feeling began to churn in all our guts.

Dread.

But not this year.

This year, when Florida players started mouthing off--looking at you Jalen Tabor--no one was scared. No one was angry. Everyone was like--knock yourself out, pal. Jalen Hurd, our running back, summed it up best.

6'0. 190. Just talkin' for attention. Not going to end well buddy. 

Considering that he's a 6'4", 240 lb running back who delivers hits like this--

--perhaps Jalen Tabor should reconsider poking the beast with a pointy stick. Especially when that beast has fifty pounds on you and runs 19.1 MPH on an elevated treadmill and 23.1 mph on a flat one. I'm no physicist, but I'd be willing to bet that the Jalen vs Jalen collision will favor the big guy in smokey grays. 

Yes, I said smokey grays--and probably a Checker Neyland triumph as well. 

Senior captain Jalen Reeves-Maybin (again--MY hometown and high school)in his response to the Tabor brou-ha-ha displayed something else I really like. 

Reeves-Maybin said he prefers to let his play do the talking.“We’re not gonna feed into that,” Kamara said. “We’re not too thirsty for attention.”
“Just play the game,” Reeves-Maybin said. “Play the game. Let it speak (for itself). You don’t see great players out there saying stuff like that. Just play.”

As for Alabama, my friends who root for the Tide are a little uneasy about the Third Saturday in October--which this year actually IS on the Third Saturday in October. October 15th, in fact--the day before my milestone *mumblemumble* birthday. A group of Finebaum callers are renting a cabin in the Smokies for that weekend and all going to the game. I'm looking forward to meeting them in person as they've all become such dear friends of mine. And nothing would be a better birthday present than driving back to Gatlinburg in a car with five Alabama fans who just watched the Tide get beat in Neyland Stadium.

I'd be able to cross one thing off my bucket list. Happy birthday to me.

The great thing about college football is that you never know what's going to happen. Regardless, though, I'm starting to see a quiet confidence creeping up Rocky Top. Silly fans--the kind who always think their team is going to go undefeated--don't count. But the knowledgeable fans, the sports media, the coaching staff, and the players--they do. While the returning veterans, the favorable schedule, and the feeling that everything is in place cannot be discounted, the main difference I see between the Vols of 2016 and the Vols of the past decade is in the mindset.of the players. Not just the seniors, but the new guys as well. Ever hear of Jonathon Kongbo? 

You will. 

 Is Tennessee's struggle back to the top of the heap over at last? I don't know. Maybe. Sure is starting to feel like it. The important differential is, I think, that the players don't believe UT is back. They KNOW Tennessee is back. The traditions are back. The power is back. The joy is back. The confidence is back. And it's infectious.

I'm not going to predict a record for the season, or wins over the Vols' biggest rivals. I'm not going to predict All-Americans or Heismans or playoff spots. After all, we are talking about the SEC--anything can happen. But it's foolish for anyone to deny after watching the progress UT has made over the past three years that Butch Jones wasn't kidding when he said he was rebuilding the whole program. The Vols just posted their highest collective GPA in the history of the program. Players are matriculating. And some of our guys, like Josh Dobbs, find ways to make a difference in both small ways and big. All of these things are WINS. The Vols are just better all-around, both on the field and off. They're committed to their path--and that kind of commitment doesn't just show up one day out of the blue. Commitment comes with confidence.

Confidence leads to wins. And if the Vols are winning in the classroom, winning on graduation day, winning in the realm of life, then they have learned how to win on the field as well.

It's good to see Rocky Top with its swag back.

So I'm planning to go to several games--the Battle of Bristol, the Florida game (where I fully expect to see smoky grays and Neyland checkered), and Alabama. Planning to drop off some orange roses on the General's grave, and tailgate with all the Volunteers I know and love online. Probably will bring some gator fritters in September and wear my gator boots. In October I'll dig out 'the' sweatshirt--the one I've only worn to the Third Saturday in October games I've attended since I bought the shirt in 1999--'the' sweatshirt is undefeated in three games in Knoxville and two in Tuscaloosa. I may chuck a couple of things at Lane Kiffin if I get close enough. And I'll be certain to be there with signs that will show up on TV if either Gameday or SEC Nation does their pre-game show at Neyland on those days. But for now, Team 120 has inspired me to deliver a line I haven't delivered since Phillip Fulmer was the coach.

See you in Atlanta..And if UT quarterback and senior captain Josh Dobbs is right, see you in Tampa too.

Because THEY believe, they've made a believer out of me.

Saturday Songs of the South 3: I Just Love Beating Their Asses-- Geoff Rockwell and the Georgia Dawgs

Not all songs of the South on autumnal Saturdays are representative of some great catharsis or emotional realization. Sometimes, these songs are just good, old-fashioned, straightforward expressions of love, loyalty, and a little bit of ass-stomping fun. Such is the song of Georgia alumni and Paul Finebaum fan and Twitter feed fanatic Geoff Rockwell, who—like me—can trace his super fandom back to a single game.

Geoff, who graduated from the University of Georgia in 1986 was an undergrad in Athens for three years. That meant he missed the glory days when Herschel Walker ran all over the competition and into the Heisman book of legends. But the game that destined him to live and die a Dawg fan pre-dated his time at UGA. That game took place on November 19, 1982 between the University of Georgia and Auburn University at Jordan-Hare Stadium. Herschel Walker was a junior, and that game is a legendary  SEC contest.

“I was planning to go to school at Georgia and my wife and I had gone to see the game,” Geoff remembered. “Larry Munson was the guy who did the radio call for Georgia then. I wasn’t a student yet, but I was soon after. Herschel Walker was in the game.”

Unless you’re a longtime SEC football fan, you might not realize that Georgia and Auburn have an incredibly storied historic rivalry. In fact, it is the oldest rivalry still played between schools in the Deep South. The first game was played in 1892, and the series record illustrates the absolute contention between the universities.

The record is 55 Auburn wins, 55 Georgia wins, and 8 ties.

Hard to get more even than that.

In the 1982 season, Georgia was vying for its third consecutive SEC championship, and as the football schedule neared its end the Auburn team was one of the last teams with a chance to ruin their so-far undefeated season.

“I do not hate Auburn University,” Geoff qualified. “I have been to Auburn many times. I work with Auburn people; know a lot of Auburn people—good people. So I don’t hate Auburn.”

Geoff paused and the grin on his face was easily heard over the phone line and four states. “I just love beating their ass. It’s just a big rivalry for me. Most Georgia people have Florida as their big rival. My big thrill is beating Auburn University. It’s kind of like a border war between our states.”

The game was close and hotly contested, but in the fourth quarter the Dawgs led 19-14 after a touchdown drive featuring 8 runs by Herschel Walker. With 2:39 left in the game, however, Auburn had returned the favor with a drive of its own. The Tigers were on the Georgia eleven-yard line, with a soon-to-be superstar of its own—young running back Bo Jackson—and four fresh downs.

“Larry Munson was one of those legendary play callers, like John Ward at Tennessee,” Geoff said, thereby earning many brownie points with me since John Ward yelling “GIVE-HIM-SIX!” is the ringtone on my phone. “He said, ‘Hunker down, you Dawgs!’ That’s what we had to do—hunker down for those four plays to win the game. That’s what made that play call so legendary.”

On first down, Jackson was brought down for a loss of two yards. On second down, the Auburn quarterback Randy Campbell was sacked. On third down and twenty-six, Campbell completed a nine-yard-pass, giving the Tigers one last chance—a fourth and fifteen. Campbell dropped back to pass, but his throw was slapped away in the end zone with :49 left on the clock. Georgia’s victory was capped by Munson yelling, “Look at the sugar falling from the sky!”—a prophecy fulfilled when Georgia went to the Sugar Bowl to play Penn State for a shot at the national championship.

“We won in the last few second of the game. That’s what made the play call from Larry Munson so great,” Geoff said. “One of those moments, you know. Beat them at Auburn. Herschel Walker was a junior. Won the Heisman and left for the USFL. He was one of the first college players to leave early for the pros left and they made a big deal out of that.”

Although Georgia didn’t win the 1982 national championship, it was the third straight year they went undefeated in conference play. Herschel Walker finished the game with 177 yards rushing, which made him the first junior to surpass 5,000 career rushing yards and basically made him a lock for the Heisman Trophy. That mid-November victory in Jordan-Hare is still remember as the seminal game in the long life of the Auburn-Georgia rivalry.

“We didn’t do so hot with Bo Jackson after that,” Geoff added. “He ran over us pretty good for a year or two.”

That one game thirty-three years ago cemented Geoff’s devotion to Georgia football, a devotion that remains unchanged to this day. “1980 was the last time we won a national championship, I hear it all the time. We have a good coach, we win ball games—but haven’t won it all since then.”

He paused for a minute, reflecting perhaps on his currently undefeated Georgia Bulldogs and the test they will face this weekend against an always tough Alabama Crimson Tide. “I don’t hate Auburn,” he repeated for the third time. “But man, I sure do love beating their asses.”

That makes total sense to me. Every good song has to have rhythm, and what better rhythm can there be than hearing eleven guys from your school knock your rivals on their backsides? The only accompaniment that might be better is the subtle sifting of sugar, as it falls from the clouds scudding over Jordan-Hare on a grey, windy November day. 

Author's note: For more about the 11/19/1982 meeting between Georgia and Auburn, check out Looking Ahead While Looking Back, Georgia Auburn 1982, the full game on YouTube, or the highlights with Larry Munson's play calls. You won't regret it--it's a fabulous piece of SEC football history!

If you have a Saturday Song of your own, drop me a line at kaantira(at)hotmail.com. I'd love to hear it, and who knows--I may use it in a future post! See you next week with a new song to sing!

Cupcakes Belong In The Bakery, Not The Power 5

So last weekend college football started, which made my life instantly pick up speed. My University of Tennessee Volunteers started off well, if a trifle erratically, with a 59-30 drubbing of Bowling Green State University. Don't be fooled, though--BGSU has a high octane offense with players that will be playing on Sundays in a year or two. They hung around for most of three quarters and a long weather delay, but when Butch Jones decided to put the game on lockdown, it was locked down. So the Vols got a win against a quality opponent, and a wake-up call on the defensive side of the ball before heading back to Knoxville for a huge home opener against Oklahoma. 

UT fans were lucky. We were treated to a real football game, instead of the dreary cupcake smashing that usually introduces us to a new season of the sport we love.  We also got to witness one of the most absolutely ridiculous moments in NCAA history.

Mike Minns...dude, you're my hero.

But I have bigger fish to fry, so get to the sideline and put your darn shoe back on. And take an acting class. No one believed that you were hurt.

No one.

Back on track--

Major FBS schools schedule absolutely outmatched squads to start their seasons off with a bang. Just a quick check of last week's scores will illustrate my point. Georgia Tech beat Alcorn State 69-6. Georgia stomped Louisiana-Monroe 51-14, while Ole Miss annihilated UT-Martin 76-3. None of the fans who went to or watched these games enjoyed the actual thrill that is a football game. And no, not even my Vols are blameless here, with the Mean Green of North Texas  or the Western Carolina Catamounts on the schedule.

And what in the name of bleeding hogs is a catamount anyway? If it's a big wild feline like a cougar, why not call themselves cougars instead? Catamount just doesn't sound intimidating at all. In fact, catamount makes me think catamite and that's just wrong on so many levels.

Sorry. Let me get back on track.

Big school fans got to tailgate, yell a lot, and witness the tiny FCS lambs getting led into the slaughter. Small school fans didn't even have the pre-game delusion that their teams could win. Beyond getting to see their team on television--and the athletic department cash in big checks as their payout for willingly jumping up on the altar of  "automatic wins" against schools with better athletes, coaches, facilities, alumni base, and everything else. 

So what do these cupcake matches do? Seriously--what good is there in having a Miami or an Oklahoma beat up on a school whose team is half their size? 

Proponents will tell you that it's great for the smaller schools. They get that big payout, for one thing. UT-Martin, for example, took home $1.2 million for their participation as the Rebels' crash test dummies. The players from those small schools get to be on TV, and if they make a great play--and survive it--their name might just pop up on ESPN. 

The bigger schools, on the other hand, get a W to kick off their season's record. They must really crave those W's; they're paying millions of dollars for each one. As each team is playing 8-9 conference games out of 12 games total on the season, that means they're forking out a minimum of $3 million bucks every year to smaller universities. 

Don't get me wrong. Not every FCS opponent is an automatic win. Remember this?

I still love that App State win over Michigan. Ranks as one of my top ten games of all time and one of only two that doesn't involve the Vols. What's the other? As if you have to ask--

A few big schools like Washington State found out this past weekend that it can happen to them as well.

But for the most part? Big time power 5 conference schools have no business scheduling a FCS opponent. The games aren't enjoyable, the risk is greater than any possible reward, and an automatic W doesn't really do the team any favors. They gain more positive benefit from scrimmaging against themselves--first string O against first string D and so forth. And let's not forget, a FCS school might not be able to beat their SEC or PAC 12 opponent, but they sure as heck can ruin their season regardless.

Injuries.

Injuries can happen anytime, anywhere. Regardless of who a team is playing, football is still a contact sport. Even when you're running up the score on an inferior opponent. Several FBS powerhouses lost key players to season or career-ending injuries while beating up a FCS school. Makes you wonder if the easy win was really worth it if you're, say, Pitt for example, whose running back James Conner ran for over 1700 yards last season. Against Youngstown State, Conner sustained a torn MCL and is going to lose the entire 2015 season.  In their win over Rhode Island, Syracuse lost their star quarterback Terrel Hunt for the season. But the scariest injury by far was to Clemson wide receiver Mike Williams.

Williams collided with the goalpost while scoring against I-AA foe Wofford and fractured his neck. Fortunately, he didn't sustain a spinal cord injury and should recover fully. But let's put this into perspective.  The touchdown that could easily  have ended Williams' career or life was part of a 49-10 victory over a Wofford team that has not defeated Clemson since 1933. Mike Williams was ranked as one of the nation's top ten receivers pre-season. And this injury happened early, in the first quarter, when Clemson's first string offense was stomping all over the Wofford defense.                                                
A defense Clemson's third string, walk-ons, and redshirted freshman could have defeated fairly handily.

Every time a guy straps on a helmet and goes out to play football, there's a risk. College players know the risks. They train extensively to build up muscle groups and prevent serious harm--which may have actually saved Williams from a worse fate last Saturday. But you have to ask yourself--what in the hell was he doing out there in the first place? Why did this guy and all the others who got injured last weekend lay it all on the line for a game that, in the end, matters absolutely nothing in the end? Is the win really THAT important?

Saturday during the pre-game shows, I expressed some of my opinions on this via Twitter, and a Missouri fan jumped all over me when I said that as a fan, I just do not enjoy watching any big school annihilate a smaller one. I don't care what anyone says, if your team is winning 76-3 there's really no urgent need to watch. He thought I was for thinking that cupcake games serve no purpose.  "Keep on pounding them! Pile up the points! The bigger the score the better the team!" And when I brought up injuries to star players as a reason for these kinds of games, he went off. Apparently he was tired of listening to people whine about losing starters to injury. Football isn't for the weak, it's a man's game etc etc etc.

Wonder if he feels a little differently now?

On Saturday, Mizzou lost both their starting center, Evan Boehm, and their starting running back, Russell Hansborough, to right ankle sprains playing against Southeastern Missouri in the Tigers' first offensive series. Both will be back this season, but not likely for a few weeks--and once those two players were injured Mizzou's offense struggled to move the ball on the ground--which led to quarterback Maty Mauk proving that the inconsistency he displayed last season is still a huge problem as the Tigers limped to an ugly 34-3 victory. Mizzou is just lucky that SEMO couldn't score against--

No. That's not right. There was no luck involved. Mizzou paid for a 1-0 start. They purchased that automatic win. Unfortunately, though, it cost more than however much money they shelled out to entice SEMO to take the L and go home richer. It cost them a couple of players too. If they're lucky, Boehm and Hansborough are back before Mizzou's SEC schedule kicks off with UK on September 26, then hits South Carolina, Florida, and Ole Miss--four games during which I can promise you that the starting center and star running back are absolutely essential for the Tigers to win.      

In the end, these power 5 schools and their athletic directors are going to have to ask themselves if the price they paid was too much for those guaranteed wins.

And hope that the price doesn't become much higher for some player, his family, and team. Mike Williams was lucky. He's a player on a football team with top notch training and facilities, and receives the kind of care that helps to protect him from devastating injury on the field. But someday, in a power five vs. I-AA game, a player without t hose advantages, a player from the smaller school, a player who's playing for love of the game and for getting an education as opposed to getting drafted into the NFL may not be as lucky as Mike Williams.

I can guarantee you that when that day comes--and it will--the price will be way too high.                                                  

Songs of the South 1--The '86 Sugar Vols and a Handshake That Wasn't

Few fans can attribute their love of a football team to a single moment. I can. 

Don't get me wrong--I grew up in a Tennesssee Volunteers family. My father, uncles, cousins, and grandfather all were Vols fans. When I was little, I learned to love the game of football. Being the only little girl in a room full of guys rooting for one team brought said little girl advantages--like staying up late so I could see the end of the game and lots of junk food. When I reached high school, of course, I had other priorities--school, books, and boys. But I always kept track of how UT was doing, and in the late 70s/early 80s things weren't exactly top of the line for the Vols. 

When I graduated high school and went to college, my interest in football began to shift. My freshman year, I started to follow the Vols more closely, heading to Knoxville several times for games. So when the 1985 Tennessee Volunteers were rewarded for their 8-1-2 record with an SEC championship and a trip to the Sugar Bowl against Miami, I was pretty excited. So I went to a fraternity's bowl party on campus, where I was pretty much the only girl who had any interest in the game at all. Most of the guys there were pals of mine, and they all thought I was the coolest girl on the planet because I not only understood the game, but knew the players' names and could spout off stats with the same ease that I could roll out answers in my political science classes or immediately find the right piece of evidence to refute my opposition's claims in a debate tournament. 

No one really gave UT much of a chance in that game. Everyone was pretty darn sure that Miami, under that ultra-arrogant Jimmy Johnson, was going to slaughter the Vols. There had been a lot of smack talking out of Florida in the few weeks before the game. Johnson, in fact, had made it pretty well known that he didn't consider the Vols a worthy opponent. Instead of talking about the bowl game his team was in, he spent his pressers talking about Penn State and the Orange bowl and how Miami had beaten Oklahoma and were obviously the best team in the nation. Unquestioningly number one. When Vinny Testaverde followed up with a warning that if UT tried to rely on the blitz they'd get burned, I'd thought that was a spectacularly stupid thing to say. UT had beat Auburn with Bo Jackson on the team. Obviously, we had a good defense. As a matter of fact, the 1985 season had been a spectacular year defensively. Our defense was nicknamed the "orange crush" and had held the last seven teams we'd played to a total of four touchdowns. Four. So after I'd read that comment by the Miami QB, I took a great deal of pleasure in telling all my football buddies that 'testaverde' meant 'green balls' in Latin--which is almost but not quite accurate. 

So there we were, preparing to watch UT's biggest bowl game in years. It being a frat house, the keg was already tapped, lots of bags of chips were being opened, girls were giggling and guys doing their pre-game 'remember this play' argument. The Sugar Bowl came up on the TV and we all cheered, because even from the Goodyear blimp it was obvious that UT had won the battle of the stadium at least. The cameras went to the center of the field for the coin toss, and our captains extended their hands for the pre-game shake. 

And the Miami captains ignored them. 

At first I couldn't believe it. They were refusing to shake hands? Seriously? At the biggest game of the year, in front of a national audience? They left our captains' hands hanging in mid-air, turned their backs, and walked away in a performance of such contempt and with such a complete lack of sportsmanship and respect that the entire frat house fell silent.  Our captains exchanged looks and turned for their own sideline. As they walked back to their team, one of the captains--I think it was Chris White--kind of squared his shoulders and stiffened his spine. Just that small change of posture was electrifying--and contagious. Because it was like a ripple on the sideline. The team stood straighter, their faces were grimmer, and their eyes were narrowed.

It electrified the frat party too. All of a sudden, the game wasn't just something fun to watch while you got drunk. Suddenly, it was an insult against all of us, against everybody in the entire state of Tennessee. Jimmy Johnson and his Hurricanes thought that the Vols were beneath them, not even worth the most rudimentary courtesy demanded by good sportsmanship. In that moment, our focus on the game shifted from anticipatory to hatred. Make no mistake about it, we were all invested in the Vols from that moment on. All the snide little comments by their coach and QB were forgotten in the absolute and unrelenting hatred we now felt for all the Hurricanes. 

And, of course, Miami took the opening kickoff and marched straight down the field to score a TD a few plays later. 

But then something miraculous happened. The Volunteers started to massacre the Hurricanes. The Orange Crush took control of the game, forcing Testaverde to gnaw on turf for the rest of the game. (Now his nose and chin were as green as his balls). Our offense started the run the ball down their throats. We sacked Testaverde seven times for a combined loss of 84 yards. Five of those sacks were in the third quarter alone, and three of those sacks resulted in fumbles that we recovered and turned into points. Add in an interception, and I'm sure Testaverde regretted his comment about how blitzing him would result in the Orange Crush getting burned.  The only thing that was getting burned at that point was his season stats. And even though Penn State did end up losing in the Orange Bowl, there was no chance of Miami ending up as the undisputed national champion. Not when they lost 35-7 to a Tennessee Volunteer team too unworthy to shake hands with their oh-so-elite team. 

It wasn't until football season cranked back up in the fall of 1986 that I realized my feeling for the UT Vols had changed. The "Sugar Vols" as we fondly call the 85-86 team had jarred me from my mild enjoyment of the game to a full-out passion, not only for the sport but for the Volunteers as well.  That moment with our three captains extending their hands and being ignored was seared into my memory. It lingers there still, as an insult that will never be forgotten and one that must be avenged, forever. I'm not sure any other team since has refused to shake hands before the game. I'm reasonably positive no other coach was as arrogant as that turnip-headed Jimmy Johnson in creating an environment where that kind of behavior would be considered acceptable. I did go to the UT-Miami game in Neyland two decades later, though, and watched Miami players practicing their chest bumps in the end zone instead of warming up. The next year was Kellen Winslow's idiotic comment about "We're soldiers"--so maybe there's just something about "the U" that bakes players' brains into some kind of vacuous arrogance. 

But one thing is certain. Since that night where my Volunteers taught Jimmy Johnson, Vinny Testaverde, and all the Miami Hurricanes a lesson on courtesy, sportsmanship, and the advantages of an 8 or 9 man rush against an overly cocky QB, they have been MY Volunteers, MY college team in all sports, MY lodestone exactly THIRTY seasons later, as I sit here impatiently waiting for the 2015-2016 season. Football is so different now, and yet that one thing remains, unchanging and unchangeable. I am a Tennessee Volunteer--a Vol for life, and the Sugar Vols of 1985-86 are the reason my feet were set upon that path.  

Celina's note: This is, I hope, the first story in a series of blog posts about college football and its fans, particularly from the SEC. I'm calling the series Songs of the South, and I'm  kind of fidgeting around with an idea beyond the blog involving these Songs. If you have a Song story you'd like to share, drop me a line at kaantira( at @)hotmail.com, and if your tale has the kind of story I'm looking for I may just add it to the Songbook. 

For more reading on the 1985-86 Sugar Vols and the Sugar Bowl, check these links out: 

http://www.allstatesugarbowl.org/site316.php

http://www.allstatesugarbowl.org/site106.php

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/sports/preps/story/2013/jul/26/whites-ut-career-has-sweet-end/114310/

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/02/sports/sugar-bowl-miami-surprised-by-tennessee-35-7.html

http://www.utsports.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/120514aac.html

Back Again, Back Again Lickety-Split (NOT)

So, I've been waiting for my laptop's return from warranty repair since June. 

That's never what a writer wants to say, especially if it's followed by  "I've lost all my work since March." 

Yep. Left to the vagaries of a frighteningly unresponsive repair department, I'm sure the hard drive that my husband the ex-hacker  network administrator couldn't extract files from is proving to be equally bullish with HP. So since I mailed my laptop off--in JUNE, let's not forget that--I've been getting my online addiction through my phone and my writing addiction--

Well, let's just say withdrawal is tough. 

Funny. Before my laptop blew up, I wasn't able to write a word. Having never been decimated by writer's block before, I must confess I am now a lot more empathetic towards writers who are suffering through weeks or months of blank pages. And now I can say been there, done that. Two months of longhand scribbling in your journals will do that to you. 

So finally, I got annoyed (as usual) and informed my husband that we were going to get a new computer. That was Saturday. Computer came today, and I rather quickly discovered that I am not smart enough to set the darn thing up.  After an hour or so of cussing (amplified because my phone decided to crap out at the same time), I gave up and waited until the husband got home. 

It took him thirty seconds. THIRTY FREAKING SECONDS. God, I hate that. I can work for hours on something electronic, bitching at him the whole while in text, and that man can walk in the door and just touch whatever I couldn't figure out and *poof!* Up it starts. Every. Single. Time. 

Except--

--for my cell. Ask yourself this random annoying technology trivia question: who is STUPID enough to make a cell phone that you cannot take the darn battery out of? 

Answer at the end of my post.

At any rate, after a long, frustrating journey, it's time to get back to some elf-killing, and with a full slate of potential topics on the docket it's looking to be a great fall.  First things first--daily writing blocks resume tomorrow, with my normal four hour AM session and at least one four hour PM session, with a break for the Paul Finebaum Show, of course. And yes, I have spent the last two purgatorial months building a brand new world--one I intend to inaugurate tomorrow morning. *evil grin* Trying to think of a name for the anti-hero main character. I'm leaning toward Godwin.

Maybe.

Then, naturally, college football is on the horizon. I've decided to actively blog football this year, mostly because that will dovetail with a couple of other professional irons I've got in the fire. Always have to be thinking ahead, you know. 

And I'll also be working to get all of my previous novels reissued and for sale again. 

What? A girl's got to eat. 

In the end, even though this computer needs a LOT of work to be up to the standards and speed of my dearly departed laptop, it allows me to do what I want to do. What I NEED to do. And that's to write, without worrying about spilling a drink on it or losing keys. I don't think I'll even hook this up to social media. The only online access I'll have on this is for research purposes. Everything else, I'll continue to do through the tablet and my phone. 

Until, at least, the laptop comes back. I might be 60 by then, but who knows? They might surprise me yet. 

Oh, and the answer to our random annoying technology trivia question? Samsung. That's right. Samsung. 

And Now For Something Completely Different...

...a not quite as serious post.  Ye olde blogge has been a little on the grim side as of late, so tonight while I loosen up my mind for a big writing binge that'll probably end up being an all-nighter, I thought I'd try to lighten things up a little bit with some random thoughts.

Random thought # 1--Just got done watching The Voice.  Christina--FIRE YOUR DRESSER. Child, you don't have any business prancing around in THAT outfit. EVER.  Those thighs were eating those pleather shorts. Seriously.

Oh, the singers?  For me no contest--the two bald ladies on Christina's team and the two guys on Blake's team. Best singer of the night--Beverly. Best performer of the night--Frenchie.  Best moment of the night--Ce Lo singing Queen. 

Random thought # 2--Two great things happened for me in the world of sports today. First, Tyrelle Pryor has ditched Ohio State for his senior season. (there is a God)  Then, Mike Hamilton, the alleged athletic director at my beloved University of Tennessee resigned. (there is a God who wears orange and white) Personally, I think this is a great thing for both schools.  Tennessee can now hire Phil Fulmer, who at least has integrity and knowledge of the area, and Ohio State can have the ultimate honor of me condescending to appear at one of their football games--which I swore I'd never do as long as Tyrelle *Mika Vick* Pryor played there.  That being said, now there are serious grumblings in Columbus on the nightly news about tens of thousands of dollars Pryor allegedly accepted, and people in Knoxville are tossing pictures of Lane Kiffin into bonfires built with Hamilton's office furniture.

Ah yes, a great day in the world of college football.  Now, if they'll only strip USC of their 2004 BCS Championship, my week will be perfect.

(Perfection attained in 3...2...1...)

Random Thought # 3--Right now, the cats are have a demolition derby in my living room.  The favorite and current points leader is Thor, the 5 month old kitten, who is outweighed by the next smallest competitor by at least four pounds.  The cats are all fine--it's the living room that's demolished.  Thor was chasing Sapphire, our sedentary, portly Siamese and they hit a pile of mail and papers on the desk.  Right now, our floor looks white instead of a warm, mellow aged oak color.

And because this is a perfect week, thanks to USC being stripped of their title, someone other than me is picking everything up.

And finally, Random Thought # 4--If I stick to my current writing schedule, What A Pretty Necklace will be completed in 6 days. Right now, Jack the Ripper and my ultimate villain are plotting the demise of my heroine--who, unfortunately for them, has developed a weapon they'll have no defense against.

Ah, steampunk!  I think I'm starting to like you.

Football, Vampires, Polls and Me

So, the NCAA BCS champions are that team whose name I never mention unless absolutely necessary. I suppose, all things considering, that it is a good thing for the SEC--winning the BCS three years in a row is a feat no conference has accomplished since the Big Ten did it in the forties but still...

I couldn't root for either team in conscience, so I rooted for turnovers. The turnovers won. Now if we're lucky the quarterback-who-shall-not-be-named will declare for the NFL draft tomorrow and I won't have to hear his name on Saturday afternoons any more.

In other news, we completed the second draft of Covenants today and somehow managed to add words to it. I'm still scratching my head over that one; we were cutting stuff, I swear! Of course, we did insinuate a whole new subplot, but it was important I tell you! Important! Suffice it to say that Breaking the Covenants is comparable in length to an Asphodel novel. Love vampire stories and hate novellas? Have we got the product for you!

Both The Gift of Redemption and Temptation of Asphodel are holding steady in the top ten of their respective categories in the Preditors and Editors Readers' Poll. I'm pretty excited by that. It makes me feel good to know that there are enough people that appreciate the Asphodel novels to actually go through all the trouble to go vote for my books. *If you haven't voted yet, GO VOTE NOW*

Sorry--you know to expect the shameless plug in every blog post until voting ends. Think of it as an itch that you'll have to scratch until January 15th and casting a vote for one of my books is like the calamine lotion you need to soothe that itch.

I'm so wrong. But, you knew that didn't you?

So, in the morning, I'll get to start work on a brand new project! More importantly, at the moment I have no clue what that will be. I'll get to wake up, eat breakfast, look at whatever frozen precipitation is yelling for my snowblower to attack and then open a new document. I'll set my format for it, think for a minute and then type the first sentence.

And all of a sudden, I will find myself in a brand new world. I can't wait.

Withdrawal, or Why the BCS Sucks

*sniff*

Work with me.

*sniff sniff*

I am sad.

Although this has not been a banner year for my beloved Tennessee Vols, this is still a sad day for me. It's the beginning of the withdrawal period, that horrible couple of weeks where they tease you with pundits and then start the best two weeks of the year--bowl season.

But something is missing this year in bowl season--something besides my Volunteers. Common sense. Let's start with the obvious.

According to BCS (Bullshit Conference Suckingupsystem) any team in a non BCS conference ranked in the top twelve in the BCS rankings is eligible for a BCS bowl bid. This year, there were two such teams--Utah and Boise State. Both were undefeated--PERFECT records which not a single BCS conference team was able to pull off. So to start off with, thinking logically, why aren't the two UNDEFEATED teams playing in the National Championship game? Hmm...let me think: because they aren't the SEC team-that-shall-not-be-named or Oklahoma or Ohio State or LSU or Texas or USC. Despite the fact that both teams played BCS conference opponents, they aren't considered good enough to compete with the big conference schools. You know--like those huge powerhouses in the ACC and the Big East. So, they're being robbed from the opportunity to (probably ever) play for the BCS championship because they belong to the wrong athletic conferences.

Let's take that one step further. Utah, quite deservedly, will play Alabama in the Sugar Bowl--an Alabama team that read one too many of its press clippings and managed to lose to the team-that-shall-not-be-named in the SEC Championship. But where is Boise State, also undefeated and ranked in the top twelve playing?

The San Diego Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl.

What, they weren't worth even a New Year's Day bowl? Did they conveniently forget how a few years ago a huge underdog Boise State BEAT Oklahoma in the best bowl game played in recent memory. Don't get me wrong: TCU is a worthy opponent. They held Oklahoma to only 35 points, their lowest score of the year (twice, due to the Oklahoma LOSS to Texas with the same score). Problem is, TCU only scored ten points in that game.

Think about that for a minute. A Notre Dame team that lost to SYRACUSE at least gets to play on Christmas Eve--in Hawaii. What reward does Boise State get for a perfect season?

They get robbed.

Come on already, guys. Have some common sense; maybe even a shred of decency. Give us a playoff. A sixteen game playoff, using the existing bowl systems and let the teams decide our national championship on the field. I'd bet money that if we had such a system this year, there would be two undefeated teams in the final four.

And what wouldn't I give--all of us give--for a national championship game that doesn't kiss the ass of the power conferences and let two undefeated teams from *minor* conferences play for the crystal BCS trophy on the field on January 8? Right now, I'd give you one Charlie Weiss and raise you a Lane Kiffin.

Word.