OneManGang
Senior Member
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2004
- Messages
- 1,952
- Likes
- 9,118
Tennessee vs The Maxims vs Vanderbilt
DATE: 26 November 2022
PLACE: First Bank Stadium (AKA: Dudley Field)
ATTENDANCE: 40,350
FINAL SCORE: Tennessee 56 Vanderbilt 0
There are only three people I've met who could rival my loathing of everything related to Vanderbilt athletics. There was a girl from Brentwood whom I dated in early 1980s, former Vol kicking coach George Cafego and CharterVol:
If any one play could be said to be the definitive Vanderbilt football moment, it came with roughly 10:50 left in the 3rd quarter. Vandy had the ball 4th and 6 at their own 29. HeadDore Clark Lea, a sometime baseball player at Birmingham Southern, decided to roll the dice. Vandy Punter Matt Hayball took the snap and took off running. Tennessee was caught napping figuring even the Common-Hoes weren't stupid enough to try a fake deep in their own territory. Hayball scampered for 21 yards and then got introduced to Dee Williams who blasted him one way and the ball the other. Nick Humphrey of the Vols gleefully fell on the pigskin. Two plays and FOURTEEN seconds of game time later, Jalen Wright stood in the end zone at the end of a 50-yard run.
Nearly two decades ago I penned this assessment of Vanderbilt football and nothing has really changed:
Vanderbilt football coaches generally follow a certain career path. The new coach is hired and arrives in Nashville promising to “make needed changes” and “do whatever it takes” to “get this program moving in the right direction.” Season one begins and the ‘Dores go out and play a couple of SEC opponents close, put a scare into an Alabama or a Florida, and win maybe four games overall. Coach is proclaimed the Second Coming in Glory and promptly sets out to “recruit the kind of student-athletes Vanderbilt needs to become competitive in the Southeastern Conference.” On the recruiting trail, he discovers that most athletes with Division 1 talent would rather sit naked in an anthill than go to Vanderbilt.
Season Two begins with “a disappointing loss” followed by more of the same. Alabama and Florida combine for three miles of total offense and 100 points, coach pleads for patience “until we get our system fully in place.”
Seasons Three and Four feature 1-10 or at best 2-9 finishes. Coach sends out feelers, VU fans (both of them) call for his head. Vandy fires Coach at end of season Five. New coach introduced with great fanfare promising to “make needed changes” and “do whatever it takes” to “get this program moving in the right direction.” And so it goes…
The only guy they had who brought them any success at all over that two decade stretch, James Franklin, hightailed it to the Nittany Lions just as quickly as he could.
As Vol legend Joe Thompson put it, “At the end of the day, they are still Vanderbilt and we are still TENNESSEE.”
Going against conventional wisdom, HeadVol Heupel chose to go on offense after Tennessee won the opening coin toss. Quarterback Joe Milton then heaved a 61-yard strike to Jalen Hyatt who went out of bounds on the Vandy 3. Jabari Small did the honors with a three-yard touchdown run. The drive took all of 55 seconds. Little did any of us watching realize that in terms of game time it would be one of Tennessee's longer scoring drives.
After exchanging punts, the Vols got the ball on their own 24. Joe Milton then engineered a drive all the way down to the Vandy 1. Princeton Fant was stuffed on 3rd down and on 4th down, he was seemingly stuffed once again and the few Vandy fans in attendance began to cheer, however Fant didn't go down. Then Big Joe simply got behind Fant and SHOVED him into the end zone.
End of 1st Quarter
Score: Tennessee 14 Vanderbilt 0
Vanderbilt's next possession stalled on the UT 21. Their field goal attempt was no good.
The Vols couldn't get anything going either and punted. The CommonHoe's then punted.
Dee Williams shagged the kick and then dodged, weaved and just flat outran Vandy's coverage team and 73 yards later was on the end zone.
There was no more scoring in the quarter.
End of 2nd Quarter
Score: Tennessee 21 Vanderbilt 0
The Dores crashed and burned in the 3rd canto.
They punted on their first possession and UT took over on the 50. Small was tackled behind the line for a two yard loss. He made up for that on the next play when he burst free and romped 52 yards to paydirt. Total elapsed time: 29 seconds.
Vandy's next possession ended in the fumbled fake punt and subsequent Vol touchdown drive described in the opening,
The Dores punted again and UT took over on the Vandy 49. A 7-yard pass from Big Joe to Walker Merrill capped the drive, which took a whole 2:15 off the clock.
End of 3rd Quarter
Score: Tennessee 42 Vanderbilt 0
Vandy went for it on 4th down at the UT 17 and failed.
Milton handed off to Jaylen Wright who pounded through the left and then took off on an 83-yard romp. This drive took 12 seconds.
Vandy again punted and the Vols started on their own 20. Not for long, though. Dylan Thompson rocketed for 80 yards to the end zone on the first play. Total time 13 seconds.
The Vols sent in the nut squad and, for the CommonHoes, the bloodletting mercifully ended.
Final Score
Score: Tennessee 56 Vanderbilt 0
********
We met LTC Creighton Abrams and the tankers of the 37 th Tank Battalion in the off season column about the 1999 Fiesta Bowl. He and the rest of the 4th Armored Division inflicted an earlier defeat on Hitler's legions in September, 1944.
Something had to be done. From the German perspective, the arrival of Georgie Patton and the 3rd U.S. Army in France had proved to be everything they dreaded and respected about the man.
Almost immediately, Patton's offensive instincts had made themselves felt and now, in September, his slashing tanks columns were roaring about the French countryside liberating towns and villages, smashing German positions and killing or capturing vast numbers of Herrenvolk. Following Georgie's lead, other American formations let fly with their own offensives and soon Paris fell to “Court” Hodges' 1st Army. Meanwhile Georgie's tanks slashed eastward. Der Fuhrer ordered his generals to stop Patton, no matter the cost.
Tanks and guns were gathered from the four corners of Hitler's empire. Three Panzergerenadier (armored infantry) divisions, three Panzer brigades, and what was left of the 11th Panzer Division were detailed for the initial attack to be later augmented by three more Panzer brigades, two more Panzergrenadier divisions and even the crack Panzer Lehr Division. Hitler also reached over to the Russian Front and called up his own tank specialist, General der Panzertruppen Hasso von Manteuffel, to lead the attack. In all the Germans mustered some 300 tanks for the attack.
Manteuffel's attack started well enough on 18 September 1944. The fighting soon centered on the French town of Arracourt. One Panzer brigade had been diverted to deal with other needs and the remaining units were scratch units only recently raised and not yet used to working with one another. However the German tanks were technically superior and the Germans were better soldiers to begin with, nicht wahr?
Unfortunately, the German attack fell on Patton's best tank unit, the 4th Armored Division and worse still, one of the Panzer brigades got lost and the remaining one managed to hit the best tank battalion in the entire 3rd Army, Lt. Col. Creighton Abrams' 37th Tank Battalion. It was foggy and while that hid the German tanks from Allied air attack, it also negated the Germans' greatest asset. The German Panzers were optimized to fight on the Eastern Front where the flat steppes rewarded long-range tank gunnery. The German Mark IV's and Panthers were snipers, the American Shermans were street fighters most effective at knife-range.
The Germans drove in American outposts and scout units on 20 September but the outposts radioed their contact information back to 4th AD headquarters which promptly alerted Abrams that Kraut tanks were nearby.
Abrams skillfully deployed his battalion and waited. Soon the sound of the Panzers came through the fog and the fight was on. The Germans came in but were unable to target Abrams' tanks until it was too late. The Shermans closed in and shot the Germans in their vulnerable side armor. One German column of eleven Panthers managed to blunder into not one but THREE of Abrams' skillfully positioned tank ambushes and was annihilated.
It went like that the whole time. Finally the lost Panzer Brigade 111 brigade made its belated appearance on 21 September just as the fog was lifting and found itself engaged with a battery of 155mm field guns and supporting tank destroyers. The 155mm gun was the equivalent of a 6” naval gun and the massed fire of the six guns in the battery nearly equaled a broadside from a light cruiser. The cannoneers were excited to have live targets to shoot at for a change and soon blasted the Panzers back from whence they came.
The clearing fog also allowed the Americans to get their fighter-bombers in the air. P-47 Thunderbolts swarmed over the battle area shooting up tanks, trucks and fuel tankers.
The 4th Armored Division launched a counterattack beginning on 23 September and lasting until the end of the month when fuel shortages forced them to call a halt.
The American victory was so complete and accomplished with so little loss that for the 4th Armored it was just “another day at the office,” albeit a busy one. Out of 262 tanks and assault guns deployed by the Germans at Arracourt, 80 were left as burnt-out hulks upon the field and a further 114 were damaged or broken down and abandoned. Combat Command A of the 4th Armored (37th Tanks parent unit) lost 14 Shermans, and seven M5 light tanks in the exchange. By the end of September, Panzer Brigade 111, which started with 90 tanks and over 2000 men ended up with 7 tanks and 80 men. Indeed, the fighting was so lopsided 3rd Army evaluated the German offensive as no more than a local counter-attack. It wasn't until after the war that captured German documents revealed that this had actually been a considerably larger affair.
After this battle, there were no meaningful German tank units left between Patton and Germany proper. However, General Eisenhower had already blown the whistle and shifted the fuel deliveries for 3rd Army to British Field Marshal Montgomery's ill-fated operation MARKET-GARDEN in Holland wjhich began on 17 September. Ike unwittingly gave the Germans breathing room and in so doing laid the foundation for the much larger Ardennes Offensive – better known as the Battle of the Bulge – in December 1944.
*******
So, how did the Vols do against the Maxims?
1. The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win.
Last week, South Cacalacka caught the Vols literally counting their chickens before they hatched. Tennessee learned the hard way that in any contest, the other side gets a vote. It is certain that HeadVol Heupel had more than a few “words of prayer” with his charges and his message got through. Vanderbilt made the classic error of assuming the USC game was the new template. They forgot they are still Vandy.
2. Play for and make the breaks. When one comes your way … SCORE!
See: Williams, Dee; Small, Jabari; Wright, Jaylen; Thompson, Dylan and, of course, Milton, Joe.
3. If at first the game – or the breaks – go against you, don't let up … PUT ON MORE STEAM!
Hanging a goose egg on ANY opponent in college football is quite the accomplishment. To do so against an SEC opponent so much the better.
OK, so, maybe this is the spot to get this said. (ahem) There has been much b*tching, whining and moaning about Big Joe on this board. I have two points to make. 1) Saturday was the first time since his injury last year that he got to work with the starters in a game: OF COURSE HIS TIMING IS GOING TO BE OFF! As the folks at SEC Shorts pointed out: What is wrong with you people??? and 2) I think we all are making a mistake thinking of Big Joe as a college quarterback. More accurately, he is an NFL talent throwing to college sophomores. Pro receivers catch those balls. HeadVol Heupel needs to work with Joe, but he needs even more to work with his receivers to anticipate the velocity of Joe's passes and catch the damned things. Pro QB's like Rodgers, Hurts, Prscott and Mahomes, et al whistle those balls on frozen ropes that leave the receivers with the choice of making the catch or having the ball punch a hole through their midsection. Calm down and let's see what the bowl game and the next year bring before oinking. I realize this is not the VolNation way, but what the hell, let's try something new?
4. Protect our kickers, our quarterback, our lead and our ballgame.
Vanderbilt made it into Tennessee territory only three times and reached the fifty only twice more and came away with bupkiss.
5. Ball! Oskie! Cover, block, cut and slice, pursue and gang tackle … THIS IS THE WINNING EDGE.
Three hundred sixty-two net yard rushing. Four TD runs of over 50 yards. The Dores sold out to stop the Vols' passing attack and dared UT to beat them on the ground. To quote a famous fictional Knight of the Crusades, they chose poorly.
6. Press the kicking game. Here is where the breaks are made.
Saturday reflected a total effort by Tennessee's special teams. Hell, even Vandy's fake punt was blown up by Dee Williams as a follow-up to his sparkling 73-yard punt return.
7. Carry the fight to Vanderbilt and keep it there for sixty minutes,
It was nip-and-tuck (sorta) in the first half but then UT hit the CommonHoes with a pocketful of flash. Heupel finally called off the dogs with 5:38 left but by that time all the Dores could do was feebly twitch and rail about the injustice of it all.
The 2022 regular season is in the books. Now the Vols await word of where they are going “bowling.” A 10-2 mark far exceeds even the wooliest Vol sheep's predictions in the preseason.
A hearty Well Done to Coach Heupel and his boys!
IT'S GREAT TO BE A TENNESSEE VOL-UN-TEER! I SAY IT'S GREAT TO BE …
Suggested Reading:
Hugh M. Cole, The Lorraine Campaign: The U.S. Army in World War II
Lewis Sorley, Thunderbolt!
Steven Zaloga, Patton Versus the Panzers
The wreckage of six German Panthers and one American M-4 Sherman at Arracourt, 1944. Note the Sherman's position on the flank of the German tanks. (U.S. Army)
Last edited:
