The trickle of fans over the low brick walls of Neyland Stadium started slow on Saturday night. Yes, Tennessee had beaten its hated foe Alabama, the cigar smoke was rising, and “Rocky Top” filled the air. It was a cause for celebration, sure, but field-storming? The uncertainty in the crowd was palpable. Didn’t we just do this two years ago? Should we…?
And then the mob mentality took over, and all reason flew away into the Knoxville sky. The Vol faithful swarmed the field, pulling down the goalposts (again) and tearing up chunks of checkerboard turf (again). The Tennessee powers-that-be weren’t pleased; the turf had just been laid down a couple weeks ago after a Morgan Wallen concert, and police wouldn’t let either goalpost leave the stadium this year for a tour around Knoxville and a dunk in the river. Old-school Vols groused quietly that this was silly; beating Alabama after a 15-year losing streak is one thing, but storming a field after beating them for the second time in three years is embarrassing.
For the second time this season — and the second time in Tennessee, incidentally — Alabama’s players had to wend their way through a tide (sorry, Bama) of onrushing fans storming the field. (At least this time no Alabama players shoved any opposing fans, though they surely would have loved to release some frustration somehow.)
Vanderbilt and Tennessee followed in the field-storming path of LSU in 2022, Texas A&M in 2021, Ole Miss in 2014 and Auburn on three separate recent occasions — moments when the euphoria of bringing down big, bad Alabama culminated in a glorious, communal stomp on the grass where it happened. It’s an understandable impulse, particularly in the cases of Vandy, Tennessee in 2022 or Auburn in 2013, the Kick Six year. Sometimes, you can’t just celebrate in your seat, you gotta…
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