When I heard that Tennessee had added Buffalo to the schedule I was extremely happy. I was excited that I was going to have a chance to see Tennessee play one of the major programs in the country and it would also bring a lot of much needed publicity to the Vols. Oh wait. That was with the team originally scheduled to play in this game, North Carolina. Buffalo on the other hand is only slightly better than Maryville High School and brings absolutely zero publicity. I didn't have to work today which made it easier for me to make it to the game. The Tennessee Fund held their donor day where they supply breakfast for donors. My parents donate to the University so I was able to eat free breakfast. I was expecting maybe a sausage biscuit and some fruit with an orange juice or something. Instead I got a small biscuit with a dab of gravy, some type of pumpkin pastry, and an apple with sweet tea to drink. Sweet Tea for breakfast is not natural. That's the kind of stuff that went on at Guantanamo to get people to talk. Someone really dropped the ball here.
When I entered the stadium I noticed something that I had never in my life seen before. There was a band sitting directly across the aisle from the Pride of the Southland. Turns out it was the Dobyns Bennett High School marching band. Immediately I knew that a high school band was going to out perform a college marching band. Sure enough halftime went to the DB band. Amazing.
Game started and as anyone would have figured, Buffalo couldn't move the ball and had to punt. This meant Devrin Young was going to have a chance to do his thing. Young fielded the punt and instantly became better than any punt returner Tennessee has had in over 2 years. After doing this, he then actually returned the punt 43 yards. Kid is amazing. He will house one before the end of the year. You heard it here first. Tennessee went on to score on an end around to Rajon Neal and the route was on.
Kid will house one. I'm telling you. Maybe even against Georgia. It's gonna happen.
On Tennessee's second drive a big run by Tauren Poole eventually led to a Tyler Bray touchdown pass to Da'Rick Rogers. Rogers caught the ball right at the goal line and fell back into the field of play. This led to the guy sitting in front of me to explain just what has to happen to constitute a touchdown. Apparently the ball has to cross the goal line in order for the points to go on the board. Who knew?
Tennessee gave up a stupid touchdown on a read option play where the Buffalo quarterback scampered something like WAY TOO FAR for a touchdown untouched. Tennessee followed that up with another pass from Bray to Rogers. Rogers caught the ball around the 40, then carried a Buffalo defender to the 20. Parlady tacked on a field goal and Tennessee ended the first quarter up 17-7.
In the second quarter Bray hit Rogers on a post pattern, Rogers caught a block from Zach Rodgers, and was forced out of bounds at the Buffalo 30 yard line. That play led to Bray hitting Da'Rick on a slant for a touchdown. One thing led to another, Tennessee found itself on offense, and then Bray found Arnett for his first career touchdown catch. Tennessee led at halftime 31-7.
Tennessee added another touchdown in the third quarter when Bray found Arnett again for the score, then both teams hit field goals in the forth quarter to make the final score 41-10. By far the play of the game was when Tennessee tried to punt, Buffalo rushed one guy, that one guy blocked the punt, the ball died right in front of Darr, Darr picked up the ball, then rumbled for the first down. So many things were wrong with that play. Tennessee did what it needed to though and now a date with Georgia looms on the horizon. I'm sure the same thing would have happened had Tennessee played North Carolina this week as well.
Matt Darr you resembled Hershel Walker running down the field. In the sense that you were running, on a football field.
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