The storm was building as kickoff approached
By Tom Mattingly
It’s still only January, but the memories of football seasons past are with us on an almost daily basis. It doesn’t take much to get the memory banks charged up. Someone says, “I remember the time,” and the discussion gets hot and heavy. It’s no place for faint hearts.
One dominant recollection from across the years was the Friday afternoon walk-though at an opposing stadium. The team plane landed uneventfully, and the team buses headed to the stadium. In those days, everything was quiet, but the storm was building as kickoff approached the next day. It’s a time that fans of both sides realize the game is at hand.
If you listened carefully, however, the echoes of Saturday afternoons and evenings past could be carefully discerned. There was enough history in the air to satisfy the most hardened observer. Mention any game or season and a flood of remembrances of the good times following players wearing orange and white come quickly.
If you happened to be standing on Legion Field, there was always a visit to the west side, north end, 31-yard line. That was the spot Tennessee defensive back Albert Dorsey picked off a Ken Stabler pass, one of three he grabbed in the fourth quarter. School was out at 24-13.
That was the game Doug Dickey said was the key moment in his coaching tenure in Knoxville. Tennessee’s Mike Jones and Alabama’s Dennis Homan fought it out on the cover of the next week’s Sports Illustrated.
You could also go to the east side, south end 34-yard line. That’s where Alan Cockrell checked off and sent Johnnie Jones around the left end on a play historically called “The Run,” also known as “49 Option,” 66 yards for a score. The memory is fresh of Jones emerging from the press box shadows into the bright sunshine at the northeast corner where the Tennessee fans were sitting.
At Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Vol fans could recall defensive back Jason Allen, an Alabama native, making the defensive stop that brought an end to a five-overtime struggle. Mike Hamilton was there, wearing an orange blazer, to welcome Jason home.
If you thought about the Orange Bowl in Miami, you could find the spot near the 33-yard line, west end, from which Vol placekicker Karl Kremser lined up the potential game-winner against Oklahoma on New Year’s Night 1968.
Alas, the Orange Bowl is not there anymore, however, having been demolished in 2008.
If you were at LSU, you could go to the southeast end and see where Steve DeLong and pals made the stop in the 1964 game that ended 3-3, another key game in Dickey’s career. That was also the end zone where LSU ran two pass plays in four seconds to beat Ole Miss 17-16 in 1972. Billy Cannon started his famous Halloween night punt return from that end, an 89-yard up the east sideline that helped defeat Ole Miss 7-3 in 1959.
If the game were at Notre Dame, you could hear John Majors talk about games when he was at Pitt in the mid-1970s. He once said the turf at Notre Dame Stadium “reminded him of a Kansas wheat field.” It was also fascinating to be in the dressing room tunnel in which Miami and Notre Dame once slugged it out in the famous “Catholics versus Convicts” game or the visiting team dressing room that came complete with television monitor.
The memory is still fresh of the 1991 game, the contest in which the Vols rallied from 31-7 down to win 35-34. No Tennessee fan could forget the last frantic moment when Jeremy Lincoln blocked the final Notre Dame field goal attempt.
If the game were being played at Florida Field, you could stand on either 1-yard line and visualize a 99-yard touchdown drive, one that happened quickly from south to north in 1977, the famed Kelsey Finch TD run. The other was a more workmanlike drive in 1971, north to south, capped by a TD pass from quarterback Phil Pierce to wide receiver Stan Trott.
You could also go to the northeast corner, where officials adjudged a Florida punt going out of bounds inside the Tennessee 1, with Bill Battle earning one of the shortest penalties in the history of the Vol program. Game officials assessed the unsportsmanlike conduct foul by picking the ball up and setting it back down. The ball didn’t move. It was that close to the goal.
If you were at Auburn, you could go to the south 33-yard line and imagine a 67-yard TD run in 1998 by Jamal Lewis that was a thing of beauty, happening shortly before he banged up a knee and was lost for the season.
You could also go to the north end 1-yard line, the spot at which Vol defenders stopped Auburn four consecutive times after a turnover had put Vol fortunes in serious jeopardy. Raynoch Thompson led the Vol defensive charge in one of the most memorable moments of that national championship season.
That’s the beauty of it all, that the memory banks really don’t have to work overtime. That’s due to the power of history, the power of watching and listening carefully.
