Sports is all about those “where were you” moments.

When Francisco Cabrera drove in Sid Bream for an improbable National League Championship Series win over the Pirates in 1992, I was a 13-year-old kid who got to stay up late, dance around the living room and embrace my dad when it happened.

When Florida missed the overtime field goal in 1998 and the Tennessee Vols exorcised the Gators demon, I was sitting in Section D for it, then I was storming the field as a freshman who felt on top of the world. Later that year, I fumed at my parents because they didn’t let me go to Tempe but still celebrated with buddies as the Vols beat Florida State for the national championship.

I have no idea what Monday night’s 42-41, inexplicable triumph over a Georgia Tech team that manhandled the Vols all night will mean in the long run. But, in it’s own sick-and-twisted, morbid way, it’ll hold a spot on the list of games I won’t forget.

Oh, it’s nowhere near the moments mentioned above, but for those of us who love the macabre, it will teeter on the fringe of fable.

In a game the Vols should have lost six or seven times, at least, a defensive hero in Darrell Taylor emerged from a field full of defensive goats who’d given up more rushing yards than any UT team in school history, battled through a block and somehow stuffed Georgia Tech He-Man signal-caller TaQuon Marshall for what would have been a go-ahead, game-ending two-point conversion by the Yellow Jackets.

For one play, a Vols defense that hadn’t stopped GT from getting three rushing yards on a play nearly all night somehow found a way to get a stop. Though every Tennessee fan in the universe gasped when Marshall somehow threw the ball while going down on the final play and nearly completed a pass, it was already on the turf when the receiver grabbed it, and the Vols escaped Mercedes-Benz Stadium with a win and 1-0 record.

Most of the night, the hulking stadium that sits mere feet from UT’s old house of horrors — the Georgia Dome — appeared to be a new torture chamber for Vols fans. Yes, every Tennessee fan would love to be the one to push the button when they blow up the Dome this fall, but maybe Monday night was a new beginning for the Vols in Atlanta.

If so, the origin of these good vibes will be hatched from familiar frustration.

For the vast majority of the night, this felt like the beginning of the end for Vols coach Butch Jones. I bet I fired the man 100 times throughout the game in my head and my heart. I fired defensive coordinator Bob Shoop 10 times that many. I’m still not sure either one of them deserve anything other than our frustration still, but this will be no column for frustration.

This is no time for scorn.

This was a momentous victory, regardless of how much better than the Vols Georgia Tech was on Monday, how few answers UT had and how many questions the Vols have moving forward. How this team needs to be the rest of the year needs to start with the team that woke up in the fourth quarter, not only on the field but on the sideline. Bad body language permeated UT’s side of the field throughout the first few quarters. Jones looked like he didn’t want to be there and didn’t know what he was doing, quarterback Quinten Dormady sat on opposite ends of the water cooler as backup Jarrett Guarantano, neither of them doing anything resembling leadership.

Guarantano especially acted like he didn’t want to be there, pouting his way through the game. There was no fire, no excitement, not a peep like you were used to seeing last year from former Vols Joshua Dobbs talking to players up and down the sideline or Sheriron Jones waving a towel and hyping his teammates.

All that changed once the Vols started to get in a rhythm on the field. Dormady came out of shell on the field and on the sideline, and all of a sudden, it looked like he was beginning to show some of the leadership skills you want from your quarterback.

The win was meaningful, and the way the Vols won could wind up being huge for this program.

Jones cliched his way through the postgame interview, but you’ve tuned him out by now, anyway. Wins like this were meant for hyperbole. They’re inexplicable, unbelievable and hard to stomach.

But they’re fun once you win; if you win.

The Vols won Monday night. Beyond all your frustration at some of the decisions Jones made or all the difficulty Tennessee experienced, do not forget that. Don’t let what you think overshadow what you saw.

John Kelly is who we thought he was. He’s a monster hellbent on getting every morsel of yardage possible on every play. When offensive coordinator Larry Scott called the type of run plays where he excels and not those slow-developing stretch plays meant for Alvin Kamara, Kelly was the best player on the field.

Tight end Ethan Wolf dropped a couple of balls, but he also made some big plays and key catches. True freshman guard Trey Smith was the best offensive lineman UT had on the field against Tech, which is saying something considering how well center Jashon Robertson played. Yes, there were tons of miscues from tackles Marcus Tatum and Brett Kendrick, but UT got much better up front throughout the game. Junior guard Jack Jones had a nice game as well.

Then there’s sophomore receiver Marquez Callaway.

With Jauan Jennings out for an undisclosed amount of time with what looked like a wrist injury, the Vols were discombobulated in the passing game. Nothing was going on, and UT needed a weapon to emerge. That happened when Callaway took over, finishing with four catches for 114 yards and two touchdowns. The 6’2″, pass-catcher played like he was 6’6″, showing the DOG that Jennings normally does when he’s in there. He went up and got passes, turned first-down catches into 50-yard touchdowns and would not be denied.

The Vols had to have warriors step up, and Callaway did that.

Dormady grew up so much, too. Everybody wrote him off in a first half that saw him throw his share of poor passes, but he also didn’t get any help from his line or his receivers. As the Vols began to get more into a flow, the junior from Boerne, Texas, wouldn’t be denied. He wanted to make plays, it looked like he believed he was going to make them, and he did. Then, when UT had to have yards, it turned to Kelly.

Sure, there are major coaching concerns still. Jones called an inexplicable timeout as the play clock was winding down on what should have been Georgia Tech’s game-winning drive. He mismanaged the clock at the end of the first half. The jury’s still out on whether Shoop will end up deserving his $1 million annual salary, and the clock is ticking. Yes, the Yellow Jackets executed exquisitely on Monday night, but Shoop had no answers. And though first-year offensive coordinator Larry Scott needs to be praised for how he called the game down the stretch, it took him far too long to get into a rhythm calling plays, and he put way too much on Dormady early when he should have slowed down the game and leaned on Kelly to help salvage some minutes for his defensive players.

All that happened, and the Vols still won. They still found a way.

With Georgia Tech putting the game away going into the end zone, Rashaan Gaulden pulled his best Malik Foreman-against-South Carolina impression and popped the ball free, giving the Vols a pivotal turnover in the fourth quarter that kept them alive.

Walk-on defensive tackle Paul Bain got his hand on the would-be, game-winning 36-yard field goal at the end of regulation, forcing the game into overtime.

Then — with guys who’d played their hearts out and got gassed like Daniel Bituli and Colton Jumper needing some sort of spark — defensive end Darrell Taylor found a way. He’d been Tennessee’s most disruptive defender most of the night, occasionally blowing up plays in the backfield for glimmers of happiness through the porous defensive performance by his team as a unit. Then, he reached down, battled off a block and made the biggest impact in the only play that mattered.

I’d be stunned (and wouldn’t believe you) if you told me you thought Tennessee was going to win that game, was going to stop that play. Again, they hadn’t stopped Georgia Tech all night. There’s no way they were going to stop them.

But they did.

And though this team gives us so much anger, so much heartache, so much frustration and anxiety and despair, they gave us something so much more valuable on Monday night:

They gave us a memory.

Now, it’s on to Neyland Stadium and Indiana State at 1-0 and with this dreadful last-gift-from-Dave-Hart debacle of a scheduling fiasco behind them. The Vols not only survived; they gave us a heart-stopping thrill.

It’s one we’ll have to remember, because I don’t think any of us want to relive that again. When it was all over, I jumped up and hugged my dad, but it wasn’t like any of those other moments I mentioned. It was out of pure, unadulterated, disbelieving relief.

Last year Tennessee got its chance to make the first impression of the college football season. It was not a good one:  the Vols were lethargic and lucky to escape against 20-point underdog Appalachian State, and it cost Tennessee nine spots in the polls. The drop was the second largest in the history of the AP poll for a team that actually won its game. While the events of week one would be quickly overwhelmed by the following four Saturdays, it took all of those events – beating Virginia Tech by three scores at Bristol, scoring 38 unanswered points to beat Florida, and escaping via hail mary in Athens – just to get Tennessee back to its original starting position at #9 in the polls.

The lesson:  if you’re going to play on a national stage in week one, you’d better play well.

The national stage is something we shouldn’t take for granted, not yet. Perhaps the Vols were still warming up to it last season; I know the experience was a long time gone for fans as well. Consider this:  from 2009-2014, the Vols played in the 3:30 CBS game just ten times. Four of those times the occasion was the number one team in the nation on the other sideline. In those six years the Vols played Florida four times and Georgia, LSU, and even Alabama just twice each on CBS at 3:30.

Most of our good and/or relevant moments in that span, like Kiffin and Crompton’s shocking takedown of Georgia? SEC Network. 2010 visit from Oregon? ESPN2. Friday night opener in 2012 against NC State? ESPNU. Should-have-could-have beaten Florida in 2014? SEC Network.

Aside from those ten games, I’d throw in College GameDay’s visit for the 2012 Florida game (on ESPN) and the 2014 trip to Oklahoma in the 8:00 PM ABC primetime spot as Tennessee’s only blips on the national radar. A dozen appearances on the national stage in six years. A dozen losses.

But in the last two years, the Vols have played the 3:30 CBS game seven times, and won three of them. Plus GameDay at Bristol in the 8:00 PM ABC slot, and I’d count the season opener with Appalachian State, and Tennessee won both of those. In 2015 and 2016, the Vols have been on the national stage nine times, and won five.

And they’ll be back tonight.

The stage isn’t success by itself, not like it’s been at places like Indiana this week. We’re Tennessee, even if sometimes we feel like we’re still trying to be Tennessee again. But we’re also Tennessee right now:  still looking for a better year than the one Phillip Fulmer gave us a decade ago, still hopeful this one might be it. The Vols were very much in the SEC East race well before Florida looked like that and Jacob Eason got hurt. That part won’t change no matter what happens tonight. But we shouldn’t take the stage for granted.

The stage is exactly why you play this game. Conventional wisdom suggests you avoid having to prepare for Georgia Tech. But the stage on this night in this stadium is worth the risk.

Tennessee will walk into downtown Atlanta’s new spaceship at the end of a long off-season when what Butch Jones said generated more conversation than what he did. The champions of life/five-star heart stuff was poorly timed, but the head coach’s actions were those of a man who was plenty disappointed by what happened last year.

The Vols will face Georgia Tech with a new offensive coordinator, new strength and conditioning coach, and new position coaches at quarterback, wide receiver, offensive line, defensive line, and in the secondary. It is undeniable change; tonight we’ll start learning if it’s change we can believe in.

We’ve spent more than a year now on our podcasts talking about how Butch Jones is a tweaker:  incremental changes over the long haul while hoping you don’t break what didn’t need fixing. This is another way to look at all the off-season changes, as the offensive coordinator and offensive line coach were in-house promotions. But Jones also learned for the first time last year what it’s like to be the head coach of a team with those Top 10 expectations.

As we’ve tracked the progress of this program, it’s noteworthy to track the growth of its head coach as well. Just as Tennessee has grown from an o-fer on the national stage to regular appearances and regular victories, so too might Butch Jones be evolving as a coach. What he says is less important than what he does. And whatever has or hasn’t been said about this team and these players, especially in comparison to their immediate predecessors, won’t matter at all compared to what they have a chance to do, starting tonight.

One year after a bad first impression on the national stage was the opening act for an unsatisfying season, Tennessee gets to make the last impression of college football’s opening weekend. Value the stage. Value the moment. Value the opportunity.

Go Vols.

It’s not Gameday for the Vols — not yet — but it is Gameday for most of the rest of college football. Hang out with us here if you’re watching the other games today.

Here’s the day’s schedule again:

College football schedule curated for Vols fans

Saturday, Sept. 2, 2017

The entire schedule

Saturday, Sept. 2, 2017

Some of you who date back to the ancient times of the Tennessee blogosphere will recall the origins of my “Locks & Keys” weekly column on Rocky Top Talk where I give you five keys to the Vols winning their game of the week then give you five college football locks to lay all your money on.

You know, if you could gamble legally, that is.

“But Brad,” you may ask, “wouldn’t that mean it was Keys & Locks??”

Well, yes, but that doesn’t have nearly the same ring to it, does it?

The last L&K I can find that I wrote came way back in November of 2012, the year before Butch Jones took over for Derek Dooley. Back then, opportunity was nowhere, and that was, in retrospect, a perfect slogan for the Vols. Though a bunch of our fans are harrumphing their way through the past 18 months of the Jones era, just think of where we were then versus where we are now.

Back-to-back 9-4 seasons don’t feel quite so bad now, do they?

I left Rocky Top Talk after the ’12 season to join Bleacher Report, and I’m still there, having transitioned from Tennessee writer to SEC featured columnist to national college football columnist. I’ve expanded my knowledge to all realms of the college football world, feeling just as comfortable writing about the Pac-12 and its players as I do the SEC and ACC. But one thing always remains the same:

I still suck at picking games.

With that little intro [read by the little voice in my head that has morphed inexplicably into a Bob Kesling “To the Cheggarboards” tenor] out of the way, let’s get on with the keys.

Perfect fits

If you still have nightmares of Tennessee getting gashed a season ago, and you wake up in cold sweats crying before sucking your thumb in a fetal position over in the corner of your bed, you’re not alone. That happens to me a lot, and the only thing I remember is an evil, laughing Bob Shoop throwing up the “VFL” hand sign before morphing into a Sal Sunseri-being that more resembles Fred Flintstone in my dreams.

*shudder*

Yes, last season was forgettable on the defensive side of the ball, especially the end of the year where teams like Missouri and Kentucky looked like Alabama running the ball against the decimated, porous Tennessee rush “defense.” If the Vols aren’t a whole lot more disciplined against Georgia Tech, they’ll get blown off the field.

I worry about them playing the edge and getting beat on the dive, drilling the quarterback and forgetting the pitch, rinse, repeat. That’s why you fear UT’s linebacker makeup, which is a mixture of talented-but-inexperienced and experienced-but-undynamic. It’s also why you should be concerned about the Vols trotting out four defensive ends that simply haven’t played a lot of football. If I’m Shoop, I play four quality tacklers in the secondary much of the game (Todd Kelly Jr., Nigel Warrior, Micah Abernathy, Rashaan Gaulden) and take my chances. The Vols have to fit the run gaps, have their defensive backs step up in the box and help and play smart, disciplined football.

Find the trench mix

With starting left tackle Drew Richmond suspended for this game, the Vols are even thinner on the exterior of the offensive line than they were during the preseason. Though UT has a lot of experience along the front, the group has been far from consistent this summer for first-year coach Walt Wells.

The Vols need to know what they’ve got heading into that game, and they need to play the best five, regardless of position. That’s likely to be seniors Jashon Robertson and Brett Kendrick, junior Jack Jones, sophomore Marcus Tatum sliding into Richmond’s spot, and freshman Trey Smith.

ESPN college football “analyst” David Pollack — who got owned more than once against the Vols in his Georgia career — called the Vols offensive line “the softest thing in college football” last year in a recent broadcast. If I’m Wells, that’s on the bulletin board, and it’s the last thing I let my linemen see before they trot onto the field. But the bottom line is UT has to prove it isn’t that on the field. The Vols need to get tough and mean, and the unit needs to be a strength. If the O-line plays well, UT will have a strong running game this year.

Let the depth of talent win the game

Paul Johnson boasted heading off the field after last year’s TaxSlayer Bowl win against Kentucky that his Yellow Jackets were 3-0 in the SEC East with Tennessee next. Indeed, Tech earned bragging rights against the division a season ago.

But this is a new year.

The Vols have superior talent this year to Johnson’s team, and there are waves of it, even if much of it is inexperienced. Shoop told the media on Thursday that he was going to play six or seven linebackers. That may seem like a lot, but those guys need to be ready, and they need to do the job. A year ago, Tech outlasted a lot of teams, wearing them down and finishing comeback wins a handful of times. The type of ball-control, run-always offense the Bees play can tire opponents.

The Vols don’t need to get caught up in playing the same 15-16 guys a ton of snaps. They need to utilize their talent and depth and let the recruiting battles Jones has won the past few years shine through.

Strategic strikes

You don’t want to put too much pressure on your first-time starting quarterback, whether it’s Quentin Dormady or Jarrett Guarantano by putting the game on their shoulders early. That wouldn’t be smart at all, especially with some capable running backs.

But the Vols do need to utilize their speed on the perimeter by taking some downfield shots. The Yellow Jackets were 68th in pass defense a season ago, and Tennessee has the weapons to take some downfield shots with strong-armed quarterbacks and some size and strength on the perimeter with guys like Marquez Callaway, Latrell Williams, Tyler Byrd and Joshua Palmer. If Tennessee can take the lid off the defense — something they failed to do consistently with Joshua Dobbs playing quarterback — the offense could expand considerably.

That’s something that needs to happen throughout the season, and it needs to start now.

Big John Studd

Everybody is excited about junior running back John Kelly.

As a matter of fact, the other night in the Gameday on Rocky Top podcast, Kelly was the player we were all most excited about in orange and white this year. In a year with not many certainties, everybody believes Kelly can be depended on. The Vols need to ride him all season and hope he stays healthy.

Think of what his body of work can be when extrapolated across a season’s worth of carries. It could be a big year if UT’s offensive line steps up. Then there are exciting players like freshmen Ty Chandler and Tim Jordan behind him. The Vols need to focus on the running game early this season and work their quarterbacks in slowly. If they can.

LOCKS

Now, it’s onto this week’s LOCKS! Get those wallets ready, boyz! They’ll be busting at the seams before too long! For the record two of my top picks of the week were on Thursday night, which were Ohio State over 56.5 and Central Florida -17. But, alas, they were off the board with the column running today.

1. Colorado State +5 over Colorado: Maybe Georgia should have hired Mike Bobo instead of Kirby Smart. He looks like a prime candidate to come back to the SEC for a  big job soon, as he’s taken over for Jim McElwain in Fort Collins and picked up right where he left off. Last week, the Rams railed Oregon State, and while the Buffaloes are a different animal than the Beavers, this is a CU team that must replace a lot from last year’s Pac-12 runner-up season. This will be two good coaches going at it, but I like the Rams to be 2-0 vs. the Pac-12 when it’s over.
2. Wyoming +11.5 over Iowa: If you haven’t heard of Wyoming quarterback Josh Allen, commit the name to memory. He’ll be one of the most elite passers in all of college football this season and a very high draft pick in next year’s NFL Draft. This weekend, he’ll be the guy hoping to lead the Cowboys to an upset bid of the Hawkeyes. They may not complete the deal, but they’ll keep it under the spread.
3. LSU -13.5 over BYU: The Cougars didn’t excite anybody with a pedestrian 20-6 win over Portland State in Week Zero. Now, they’ve got to travel across the country to take on an upstart Bayou Bengals team in Death Valley? Ugh. That doesn’t bode well for Kalani Sitake’s team. The Fighting Coach Os Prevail. Big.
4. Michigan -3.5 over Florida: This is the lock of the week. I don’t care how young the Wolverines are and how much talent they lost off last year’s team (11 players drafted in the NFL, in case you’re counting). Jim Harbaugh is recruiting at a high level, and Big Blue is about to be BIG again for a long time. The Wolverines will sputter some in the early season for sure, but this game won’t be one of those. The Gators have suspended 10 players, and that includes some of their few playmakers. Also, they’re starting redshirt freshman Feleipe Franks at quarterback. Michigan will win by two scores.
5. Tennessee -3 over Georgia Tech: I guess I’ve got to pick this one, but I don’t really think it’s a lock. As a matter of fact, this is going to be the fourth-toughest game on UT’s schedule, in my opinion. But the Vols offense is going to surprise some people this year, and I like Shoop getting months to prepare for this scheme. Of course, I wish Darrin Kirkland was in the lineup, but you can’t have everything.

FINAL VOLS PREDICTION: Tennessee 34, Georgia Tech 24