LARGETONY Blog

About 7 AM on Saturday, I was sitting on the back porch having my daily bowl of oatmeal. I don’t eat oatmeal every day for health reasons or anything like that. I do it just because I like oatmeal. It’s just a bonus that it’ll keep my cholesterol down and helps keeps me regular. (I never get all fudgy back there.)

I was looking out towards the west at a bunch of darkish clouds making it look like the sky was kind of bruised. But, everything in the foreground of my view- trees, houses, etc.- was being lit up from the east by the morning sun that had come up behind me. There was none of the haze that’s typical of summer in East Tennessee, so the sunlight wasn’t being diffused and it gave the east face of everything a sort of golden orange tone. Against the purple western sky it was kind of surreal. It was like being someplace else. A few hours later I was telling my friend, Steve, that I thought it was a sign. Of what, I didn’t know.

About 7 PM on Saturday I was seating in the bleachers of Neyland Stadium having my annual rush of excitement the first time the Vols score in season opener. Tennessee was ranked #23 to begin the season and playing against #9 ranked Cal(ifornnia). I had said in a previous post that Cal was ranked #12. That was their ranking on the Coaches’ Poll. On the AP Poll they were ranked #9. I’m going to go with the AP because is sounds even sweeter to have beaten #9 than #12.

And beat them, we did. Whomped them, in fact, with a final score of 35-18. It was almost going to 42-18, but the Vols fell short by one yard on a first down attempt in the red zone. (Those of you who know football know what that means. Those of you who don’t, won’t care, so I won’t bother to explain it.)

It’s funny how when you are about three touchdowns ahead, shortfalls like that just roll off your back. Last year, fans would have been crazed at coming up short so close to scoring. That’s because last year was that horrible, dark, ugly bruised sky.

I don’t want to jinx it, but if yesterday was any indication, then those skys are rolling on and the sun has made everything a bit more orange. UT Orange. The rest of the Southeastern Conference, and maybe a lot of the nation, is sitting up and taking notice today, because this wasn’t a fluke win where the ball happened to bounce our way, or where you win because the other team basically beat themselves with mistakes and goofs.

The game was a 35-0 shut-out until we put in a lot of our second teams and Cal was able to finally earn a few points. But they still had to work for those. They didn’t just run over the second-stringers. Tennessee simply outplayed Cal. If they passed, we intercepted. If they ran, we tackeled. Our quarterback was protected and our receivers were kept open. It was a ballsy, double-barrell, two-fisted performance.

So, I was wrong in predicting Tennessee’s first loss. Way wrong. Hopefully I will continue to be wrong about the losses. The Vols played yesterday like the Vols of the nineties. That was Tennessee’s golden age. And it looks like the Orange might just be golden again.

Perhaps it was a sign.

NOTE: The title of this post is taken from a line in the movie, “The Outsiders.” ….”Stay gold, Pony Boy.”

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 3rd, 2006 at 7:49 pm and is filed under football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.