Looking to give the system a hard reboot, Tennessee quarterback Jarrett Guarantano dropped back, wound up, and launched a deep ball to one of his most trusted receivers.
It should have been intercepted.
An ominous start against an inferior opponent, to say the least.
Forget the fact that Ty Chandler opened the game with an impressive 58-yard kickoff return. We Vols fans have seen too many happy moments immediately swallowed by malevolent forces not to be vulnerable to the oh noes. So, that near-pick on the first play from scrimmage made you grimace and brace for another day of new and novel disappointment.
But it was thankfully short-lived because immediately after that, the machine finally came to life. Tim Jordan ran for 9 yards, Eric Gray for another 8, and then Jordan for another 4. Then Chandler got another first down on a 7-yard run and hit the checkerboards on the next play with a 13-yard dash to the end zone. Five plays, all on the ground, for a 41-yard touchdown drive aided by Chandler’s kickoff return to set up the short field position.
With the exception of an early live-fire experiment for backup quarterback Brian Maurer in the third possession, the Vols offense scored on every drive until the third quarter was nearly over, and with Tennessee leading 45-0 by that time, the game was over as well.
Meanwhile, the defense not only pitched a shutout, it went on a turnover binge. Nigel Warrior returned an interception 22 yards on Chattanooga’s first offensive possession. After forcing a three-and-out on the second, the Vols defense let the Mocs drive down to within sniffing distance of the end zone but recovered a fumble to end that threat. The defense got off the field early after another three-and-out on another possession and then ended the next one with the first of two interceptions by Jeremy Banks.
By the end of the day, the Tennessee defense held Chattanooga to 227 total yards and caused five turnovers despite playing half the game with its second- and third-string. The Vols offense ran for 195 yards and threw for 165 and protected the ball the entire game. And the special teams even got into the action, blocking a punt and returning it for a touchdown.
Guarantano went 7-8 for 142 yards and 3 touchdowns in his short day. Six different running backs put up more than 10 yards, Chandler leading the way with 46. And eight different guys caught passes with three of them — Jauan Jennings, Marquez Callaway, and Cedric Tillman — getting in the end zone.
All of this, of course, was accomplished against an outmatched team from an entirely different league. But we don’t have to go too far back in the archives to find disappointing results against inferior opponents, so it was good to hear the machine hum again.
It’s not like we weren’t all wondering if it was all a pile of rubble already, especially after Guarantano’s first pass looked more like the last two weeks than how he looked last year.
But the awful beginning gave way to finally seeing what we actually expected.
Who know? Perhaps the season itself can follow the same script.