Vols take deserved victory lap at Bristol

BRISTOL — Let’s start with the videoboard. I couldn’t stop looking at it all night, and not just because it was the only way I was going to have any idea what was happening on the football field at Bristol Motor Speedway.

We’re talking 700 tons, 63 feet wide and 30 feet tall, with 18 million pixels for 25 percent more sharpness than the average HDTV, suspended above the temporary field of play by cables larger than the Golden Gate Bridge’s vertical supports. It even has a Marvel movie villain’s name — “Colossus” — and there was some concern it would sprout mechanical legs and take over the whole place.

But that never happened, and those cables held strong and prevented the monstrosity from turning the field into a crater. When it was over, this event that has been many years in the imagining and three in the planning, this “Pilot Flying J Battle at Bristol,” this tailgate for the ages, this spectacle at racing’s coolest venue, this gathering of the largest crowd in the history of American football, all was well.

And that’s true as well for the folks who entered Saturday under the most scrutiny. There was a football game to be played amid the celebrity cameos and stirring sights — none more impactful than the national anthem with Jennifer Nettles singing and fans correctly using their red, white and blue flip cards — and the Tennessee Volunteers eventually decided to play.

Saturday’s 45-24 win over Virginia Tech in front of a record 156,990 spectators, about 70 percent of them in orange, was not necessarily the stuff of SEC champions. It was an answer, though, after last week’s overtime evasion of Appalachian State and Saturday’s disastrous start on both sides of the ball.

It was another indication that this team has some character — last week actually revealed some of that as well. The Vols needed a good dose of it Saturday, and some help, after Justin Fuente’s first Virginia Tech team jumped all over them and took a 14-0 lead (and 204-28 yardage edge) into the second quarter.

Hokies quarterback Jerod Evans was firing strikes and running over Vols defenders. Running backs Sam Rogers and Travon McMillian were making big plays, McMillian scoring on a 69-yard sprint after UT’s LaTroy Lewis lost containment on the outside.

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And the Vols were sputtering (or misfiring, or fill in your own NASCAR-related pun) on offense. No first downs, plenty of whiffs up front.

“We have to learn how to have intensity for 60 minutes, and not have lulls,” UT coach Butch Jones said of another sluggish start.

This one changed when Evans and Rogers botched an exchange for a lost fumble. UT’s Joshua Dobbs hit Jauan Jennings on a well-timed fade for a 5-yard touchdown on the next play, and a football game began.

And then it went completely the other way, the Hokies fumbling through the rest of it. The Vols were so dominant in the second and third quarters that the fourth provided an opportunity for fans to stagger leisurely back to the RVs.

There are still questions about this UT team, starting with an offensive front that is much more effective when it can get into a running rhythm, and at this point looks like it will be overmatched in pass protection against the SEC’s best.

And Dobbs appears destined to make UT fans fret in his final season. He can make the most dazzling of plays, such as his 38-yard, back-shoulder touchdown loft to Josh Malone that could not have been put in a better spot. And then he’ll run around and make a throw across his body that would earn the greenest of freshmen a chewing-out on the sideline.

But successful in-game adjustments are indications of good coaching and seasoned players, and this makes two straight weeks that Bob Shoop’s defense has reacted to early mistakes with long stretches of stinginess.

Virginia Tech’s first three drives yielded 198 yards, two touchdowns and a missed field goal. Its next seven yielded 31 yards and nary a sniff of a scoring opportunity. And by the time the Hokies got it again, they were down 31-14.

“It was really just about settling in,” UT linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin said. “A lot of those plays they hit on us in the first quarter was just our mistakes. … Once we settled in, we played great defense.”

In the end, UT looked like it could finish somewhere in the neighborhood of its preseason top-10 billing, with an important tune-up game against Ohio next — before the Quartet of Death (Florida, at Georgia, at Texas A&M, Alabama) that starts Sept. 24 against the Gators.

And the Vols can look back on a historic night and be proud of more than the fact that they wore their actual, classic jerseys to it (as for the Hokies, hideous choice).

This thing had Peyton Manning and Michael Vick, and it was visually pleasing inside and outside the speedway that dubs itself “The Last Great Colosseum.” Fuente used the words “fantastic” and “incredible” to describe an event that finished with his team losing five fumbles.

“What a spectacle … I don’t know if this will ever be duplicated or replicated,” Jones said.

“It definitely lived up to the hype — 156,000 people, absolutely insane,” Dobbs said after his 106 rushing yards and two touchdowns made him UT’s all-time leader in quarterback rushing yards.

Sure, about 100,000 of the seats featured bad or worse views of the action, but you already knew that would be the case. It’s why this should be a one-time only event, but the financial success virtually guarantees there will be sequels.

Most of the fans at the men’s Final Four in the past several years have had terrible seats, but the NCAA can sell out a full stadium and its luxury suites, so there’s no change. At least the next Final Four, in Phoenix, will feature an enhancement — the almighty “Colossus,” in its next public appearance.

Follow Joe Rexrode on Twitter @joerexrode.