Comment from Tennessee redshirt senior should make fans feel better about Vols' road woes
The Tennessee Vols' last four losses under Josh Heupel have come on the road, which has created a narrative that UT isn't very good away from Neyland Stadium. One of those losses was to Georgia last November in a game where Tennessee didn't handle the crowd noise very well. Another loss was to South Carolina […]
The Tennessee Vols' last four losses under Josh Heupel have come on the road, which has created a narrative that UT isn't very good away from Neyland Stadium.
One of those losses was to Georgia last November in a game where Tennessee didn't handle the crowd noise very well. Another loss was to South Carolina in a weird game where it seems likely that the Vols were looking past a struggling Gamecocks team.
The other two losses came this season. One of those was in the Swamp — a game where Vols quarterback Joe Milton was nowhere close to 100 percent. And the other one was in Tuscaloosa, which was a game where Tennessee played poorly in the second half while also being on the wrong side of a number of questionable calls.
While it's accurate to say that Tennessee has struggled on the road at times under Heupel, none of those losses were necessarily egregious. There were other factors, outside of the Georgia game, in those games aside from playing on the road that contributed to Tennessee losing.
The Vols somewhat quieted the "road woes" narrative this past week with a big win against Kentucky in Lexington. While playing at Kentucky isn't quite as an intimidating as playing in the Swamp, it was still an SEC road game at night. And the fans were into the game for all 60 minutes.
Vols redshirt senior tight end Jacob Warren noted during an appearance with Dave Hooker on "Off the Hook Sports" this week that Tennessee's players actually fed off the energy of the pro-Kentucky crowd.
"It was interesting because — just kind of how they played and their fan base was in it the whole time like we were losing," said Warren. "It felt weird. It felt like the roles were reversed and they had all this energy. They had all of this momentum. And we were able to just feed off that energy."
During a few road games, the Vols have had trouble recovering after their opponent gained some momentum. That was especially true against Alabama. But when the Wildcats started to gain some momentum on Saturday, the Vols were able to feed off that energy and "weather the storm" (Kentucky actually had a chance to take the lead in the second half with a field goal).
Maybe this is a sign that Tennessee's fortunes on the road are changing for the better. The Vols have one more big road test this season — against Missouri on November 11 — before finishing the regular season with two straight home games (against Georgia and Vanderbilt). Tennessee will need to keep that same energy against Missouri in front of what should be a rocking crowd (by Mizzou standards) at Faurot Field.
Kentucky’s players made a big mistake before playing the Tennessee Vols last Saturday
All they did was fire up the Volunteers
