Wadley’s Weekly: Snap and Clear

By Will Hadley

I really am not trying to be dramatic or anything, but I think Saturday was the worst day of my entire life. My wife and I went to Fayetteville for what would be a fantastic weekend celebrating my birthday. Per my previous blog, I’m sure you could see how confident I was going into this game. We were the better team and we blew it. Outside of Dylan Sampson, our offense played like 💩 in pretty much every facet of the game. When Nico hit Thornton to get into the red zone with time expiring, I knew that we were about to pull it off. Because that’s what elite teams do, right?

Well there we were. After gross clock management, we had basically one shot to win the game with 6 seconds left. We were going to break their hearts. It was going to be beautiful. And then, the unthinkable happened…

He just… ran out of bounds. 

I stood there in utter shock. I couldn’t move. Trailer park frenzy all around me, people screaming in my ear, ironically playing Rocky Top. It was absolute hell. And on top of that, it was my 26th birthday and I’m on daddy’s insurance! So now I’m poor and my team sucks. Great.

I was at the lowest of lows. Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would drop that game off of a bye week. And thus began the stages of Vol grief.

Saturday night was for anger. A time to bitch. A time to gnash.

Sunday moved to sadness. A time to moan. A time to weep.

Monday left us with questions. What went wrong? Can we turn this around?

But then came Tuesday. The sun came up. And just over the horizon, in all of its glory. A little thing called hope. 

They never should have let us make it to Friday.

Now you see, sometimes the scariest part is when you have to let reality set in. But lucky for us, reality isn’t all that bad in this case. Everything is still right in front of us. We have so much to play for! We had a bad night. So what. Everyone has those. 

In this era of CFB, the skill gap is smaller than it has ever been and it’s only going to keep moving in that direction. Nobody is safe, and anyone can get clipped.

We still have a good football team. And this football team can still be great too. We have some things to work on, but we know that we have a chance in every game left on the schedule. Beat Florida at home. Beat Bama at home. And we ride.

Now I want to invite you to move your eyes really close to your screen. 

Keep going.

Stare intently.

And just like that, the undefeated Vols are welcoming our arch nemesis to Neyland Stadium for an absolute skull dragging. It’s a new era in Knoxville, and we aren’t scared of the Florida Gators anymore. These boys are ASS. 

If the world didn’t know before, they’ll know this weekend. This Tennessee offense is NOT to be messed with, and Nico and the boys will be putting on a show. 

Florida may be 2-0 now against Miltons. But they’ve never seen an Iamaleava. 

-Will