By Camden Gober
From the newly donned “Neyland Legacy” uniforms to the old-school interlocking UT logo at midfield to the physical battle in the trenches, this one had old-school Tennessee written all over it.
On a day when Tennessee honored Gen. Robert Neyland and celebrated the 100th anniversary of his first season on Rocky Top, the product on the field felt fitting.
The General probably would not have been thrilled with every part of this one. There was plenty of ugly to go around. However, the resilience to keep fighting and battling no matter how the game unfolded probably would have put a slight grin on Neyland’s face.
This certainly was not a performance Tennessee will clamor over, but style points did not matter Saturday afternoon. No matter how ugly it got, the Vols found a way to pull out a 24-14 win over Auburn in a physical slugfest.
In many ways, that felt like the perfect way to honor the General.
“I think there’s only one fitting way to start this press conference,” said Josh Heupel as he recited Gen. Neyland’s Game Maxim No. 3. “We’re honoring General Neyland here and his legacy – uniforms, everything – it’s the right way to start this press conference.”
General Neyland’s Game Maxims are woven into the fabric of Tennessee football, with the Vols reciting all seven before every game. The Maxims are more than words meant to fire up a football team. They are a blueprint for how to win a football game.
On Saturday afternoon inside Neyland Stadium, that blueprint came to life.
In an old-school, physical battle with Auburn, Neyland’s Maxims proved to be the exact recipe Tennessee needed to walk away with a victory.
Game Maxim No 1. – The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win
Did Tennessee make mistakes on Saturday? Absolutely, and plenty of them. The difference was that Auburn made a few more.
When Tennessee’s offense struggled to find its rhythm, the defense stepped up time and time again to pick up the slack. The Vols turned the ball over twice, coughing up one fumble and throwing one interception, but the defense had its offense’s back. Tennessee forced three Auburn turnovers of its own, recovering a fumble and hauling in two interceptions to win the turnover battle.
Game Maxim No. 2 – Play for and make the breaks. When one comes your way—score.
Not only did Tennessee win the turnover battle, but the Vols made Auburn pay for its mistakes.
Two of the afternoon’s biggest plays came from the Tennessee defense. The first was a crucial interception by Dejuan Lane, and DeSean Bishop immediately turned it into points with a 44-yard touchdown run on the next play to open the second half.
The second came on a monumental fourth-and-inches stop at Auburn’s own 24-yard line. Tennessee took advantage of the short field and cashed in once again, pushing the lead back to double digits and essentially putting the nail in the coffin.
Tennessee played for and made the breaks. More importantly, when those breaks came, the Vols turned them into points.
Just as the General drew it up.
Game Maxim No. 3 – If at first the game—or the breaks— go against you, don’t let up… put on more steam.
The maxim Josh Heupel used to open his postgame press conference essentially summed up Tennessee’s entire afternoon.
Nothing went Tennessee’s way offensively in the first half. I mean nothing. The offense was stale, stagnant and downright ugly. It got to the point where Heupel ultimately made the decision to pull true freshman quarterback Faizon Brandon late in the second quarter and turn things over to George MacIntyre for the remainder of the game.
So yes, Tennessee entered halftime trailing 7-3. The offense could not find a rhythm; the breaks were not falling its way and Heupel had already made a change at the most important position on the field.
Still, Tennessee never folded.
The Vols trusted MacIntyre. They trusted their coaches. Most importantly, they trusted that if they kept fighting long enough, they would eventually find a way to win the football game.
That is exactly what they did.
Game Maxim No. 4 – Protect our kickers, our QB, our lead and our ball game.
The most impressive stat of the afternoon was Tennessee’s offensive line, which struggled mightily a week ago and remains incredibly banged up, allowed just three sacks on Saturday, all in the first half.
Early on, it looked like many of the same problems from a week ago. Brandon was once again running for his life as Tennessee struggled to keep the pocket clean. In the second half, however, that changed. The Vols leaned on their offensive line and running game down the stretch, and what started as a “here we go again” concern became one of the afternoon’s bright spots. Tennessee kept MacIntyre’s jersey clean and gave its offense a chance to finally find some rhythm.
Game Maxim No. 5 – Ball, oskie, cover, block, cut and slice, pursue and gang tackle for this the winning edge
I can’t overstate how good this Tennessee defense looked again.
The Vols entered Saturday tied for the most sacks among Power Four teams this season, and this nasty front seven continued to wreak havoc against Auburn. Tennessee got home four more times while adding eight tackles for loss, consistently making life difficult for the Tigers at and behind the line of scrimmage.
Dejuan Lane was at the center of it all. The junior defensive back tied for the team lead with nine tackles, including six solo stops, while adding two sacks, 2.5 tackles for loss and an interception that he returned 31 yards to set up a Tennessee touchdown on the very next play.
Through five weeks, Jim Knowles has this Tennessee defense looking and playing like one of the best units in the country. More importantly, when the Vols’ offense has struggled to find answers, the defense has consistently provided them.
Game Maxim No. 6 – Press the kicking game; here is where the breaks are made.
There is also a reason the first part of Maxim No. 4 says to protect our kickers before it says to protect our quarterback.
In an old-school defensive rock fight like this one, the kicking game can make all the difference. For Tennessee on Saturday, it did.
Jackson Ross quietly put together one of the most important performances of the afternoon, punting six times for 265 yards with five of those punts pinning Auburn inside its own 11-yard line. In a game where both teams leaned heavily on their defenses and points were at a premium, field position was everything.
In that regard, Ross may have been Tennessee’s MVP.
Game Maxim No. 7 – Carry the fight to Auburn and keep it there for 60 minutes.
This last one goes without saying. It took Tennessee all sixty minutes to come out on top in this one.
Does Tennessee have a lot to clean up? Absolutely. There was plenty of good, plenty of bad and certainly some ugly on Saturday afternoon. There are still questions this team has to answer. However, at the end of the day, the Vols picked up their first SEC win of the season while snapping an embarrassing SEC home losing streak in the process.
Tennessee still has plenty to figure out, including the biggest question of them all: who will be Josh Heupel’s quarterback moving forward? At the same time, there is plenty of good this staff can lean on and build from as the season moves forward.
The road does not get any easier from here. Tennessee travels to Fayetteville next week for a tricky matchup with Arkansas, a place where the Vols have struggled through the years, before a juggernaut Alabama team awaits the following week.
Saturday was not pretty. It was physical, messy and, at times, downright ugly.
But maybe that was fitting.
On an afternoon dedicated to honoring Gen. Robert Neyland, Tennessee did not need to play its prettiest football. The Vols simply needed to fight, scratch and claw their way to a victory.
They did exactly that.
It was old-school Tennessee football on a day built to celebrate it.