Vols 30, Tigers 27
Wow. From the lowest low to the highest high, the Vols have beaten LSU in Baton Rouge! Due to my lack of cable TV, I had to listen to the game via the internet, but the excitement was still there (unfortunately John Ward wasn’t!).
Question for Coach Fulmer: what does Rick Clausen have to do to win the starting position? Beat Randy Sanders in a hot-dog eating contest? Rick Clausen is the man. Case closed.
The Vol defense gets an A. Toughness all around. Jonathan Hefney’s late-game interception gets my play of the game. The Vol receiving corps, with their countless missed passes, should get an F, but since we won, I’ll let them by with what our public school systems call a “social promotion.”
A breather next week with Ole Miss at home? Let’s hope so. . .
UPDATE: Go read Pat Forde’s article on the game and the resiliency of Rick Clausen. An excerpt:
Down 21-0 in front of 92,000 fans enjoying the loudest, giddiest group therapy session in college football history, Fulmer turned to the quarterback he’d kept treating like a bag of dirty sweat socks. He had no choice.
Read the whole thing.
Since you did not have access to cable tv, I thought that you might like to know that as Coach Fulmer left the field last night, he was cornered by the lady commentator. I do not remember the substance of her question, but I do remember that Coach Fulmer was very gracious and appreciative of the performance by Clausen. He then turned over the comments to Clausen himself who attributed the win to a team effort. I would not expect that Ainge will get to play again barring an injury to Clausen or a lopsided victory. My only regret is that they learned who their starting quarterback was before they played the Crimson Tide. Now my Tide is in real trouble.
Read the Forde column this morning, almost cried. Great writing, but I think he wrote the last few paragraphs (all about the setting, the “feel good” bits about LSU) sometime during the second quarter, it looked like this one was in the bag. I was ready to go to bed at halftime, sure glad I didn’t!