Tennessee's Evan Berry rumbles on an 88-yard kickoff return for a second-quarter touchdown Saturday night in the Vols' 55-10 rout of outmanned Western Carolina before 102,136 fans at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville.
photo by Dennis Norwood
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee scored in almost every imaginable manner Saturday night and easily roared past overwhelmed Western Carolina, 55-10, before 102,136 fans at Neyland Stadium.
The Vols (2-1) were expected to blow out the visiting Kittymounts – uh, Catamounts – and they did.
Tennessee scored 31 points in the second quarter – the most points in a quarter since the Vols put up 35 points against Arkansas in 2000 – and enjoyed a 41-3 halftime lead.
That was the Vols’ largest halftime advantage since they led Austin Peay 42-0 at the break in 2013.
“It was a big game to see how we would respond,” said Vols coach Butch Jones, referring to the team’s blowing up a 17-point lead in last week’s 31-24 loss to Oklahoma in two overtimes. “I thought our team showed some maturity in growing up.”
This was supposed to be a blowout. Anything less would have been as big a disappointment as last week’s loss to the Sooners.
Western Carolina, which boasts the lowest winning percentage of all teams with at least 10 years in the Southern Conference (this is its 37th year affiliated with the league), was no match for the more talented Vols despite Jones trying to “build up” the opponent in days leading up to the game.
The FCS Kittymounts posted a winning record of 7-5 in 2014, something they hadn’t done since 2005. Between those two seasons, Western Carolina (1-2) went 14-76 overall and 4-58 against SoCon teams.
When Appalachian State and Georgia Southern moved up to FBS, the SoCon became terribly weak and the Kittymounts are among its most feeble programs with a 325-481-23 all-time record.
After a slow start, the Vols started their scoring rampage and it was something to behold.
Soak this up:
The Vols ran 70 offensive plays and rolled up 447 yards of offense – 237 passing and 210 rushing.
Evan Berry bolted 88 yards on a kickoff return – with his brother Eric, of the Kansas City Chiefs, was at the game and ran through the “T” as the team celebrated the 50th year of that tradition – for a second-quarter touchdown.
“I give my best every game, but knowing (Eric) was coming I just tried to make something happen, and it happened,” said Evan Berry, who was fighting a sinus infection. “So it was a great feeling.”
Jones was happy Eric, who just returned to active player status after battling cancer, could make the trip to Knoxville.
“That was a special moment for them,” Jones said. “And he can run through the ‘T’ as many times as he wants. He has that right and that privilege. He’s earned that.”
The brothers had time to visit after the game.
“He talked a little trash,” Evan Berry said. “He said he would have caught me. I denied it.”
Berry grabbed the short kickoff and raced up field. Near the Vols’ 35, Berry got lost in a player scrum and suddenly broke free from kicker Blake Metcalf, escaped the grip of A.J. McCoy and rumbled down the right sideline. He is the first Tennessee player to score on a kickoff return since Cordarrelle Patterson in 2012 against Mississippi State.
Berry’s brilliant return capped the Vols’ scoring in the big second quarter.
Less than five minutes into the third quarter, Alvin Kamara returned a punt 50 yards for a score that pushed Tennessee’s lead to 48-3. Kamara also scored on a 2-yard run earlier in the quarter, becoming the second Vols player to score on a rush and return in the same game. The other was Stanley Morgan against Maryland in 1975.
Additionally, Tennessee hadn’t produced punt and kickoff returns for scores in a game since doing so in a 27-20 win over Washington & Lee in 1950.
“That’s obviously great, making some history,” Kamara said. “On Evan’s kick return, I called it. I saw him break out on a short kick and I just put my hands up, I’m like, ‘Yup, touchdown.’ ”
Kamara returned another punt in the third quarter for an apparent score, but a penalty on the Vols negated the play.
“It comes with the game,” he said. “I wasn’t really too disappointed.”
Jalen Hurd scored twice in the first half on a 5-yard pass from Joshua Dobbs and added an 8-yard run that pushed the Vols’ lead to 27-0. Hurd finished with 68 yards rushing on 11 carries, snapping a three-game streak in which he gained at least 100 yards on the ground.
Freshman Preston Williams, playing in his first game after being sidelined by an injury, caught his first career pass from Dobbs in the first quarter and it went for a 25-yard touchdown.
Williams added a third-quarter touchdown on a 24-yard strike from freshman quarterback Quinten Dormady, who scrambled to his right and fired a bullet to Williams wide open in the end zone.
“I just rolled right to escape pressure and (Preston) was standing there wide open, so I got it to him,” said Dormady, who completed 6-of-8 passes for 93 yards.
Williams caught three passes for 98 yards, including a 49-yard gainer on Dormady’s first pass of the game.
“He’s so long, he can play the ball I the air and he can run,” Jones said. “It was great to get him going tonight. Here’s a young man who had zero training camp, so every practice repetition that Preston has in critical.”
And there was senior defensive back LaDarrell McNeil.
Although he didn’t score, McNeil may have enjoyed the most enjoyable play in the game.
Two weeks ago, McNeil was battling “neck instability,” Jones said, and his football future was clearly up in the air. But in the second quarter the defensive back from Dallas, Texas, McNeil intercepted a pass and returned it 57 yards to the Kittymounts’ 8. Hurd ran for his second touchdown on the next play.
“It was a very trying two weeks for (LaDarrell) and his family,” Jones said, “and then the emotion of your football career not being over, you don’t have to have surgery and getting him back in the fold.
“We wanted to ease him into the game tonight because he hasn’t played football in a while. It was very rewarding when he had that interception.”
Dobbs completed 15-of-21 passes for 144 yards and the two scores before giving way to Dormady, a highly touted rookie from Boerne, Texas.
Although the Vols’ offense sputtered in a scoreless second half against Oklahoma – they scored in the first overtime, but failed to find paydirt in the second – they have scored 138 points in three games. That’s the highest total over the first three games since 1914 when Tennessee rang up 171 points in the same opening span.
The Kittymounts got their only touchdown of the game when Detrez Newsome rambled 64 yards with 10:59 left in the fourth quarter. Newsome ran 10 times for a game-high 128 yards.
“Well, Detrez is a workhorse,” Western Carolina coach Mark Speir said. “He is a blue-collar mentality guy.”
Newsome’s solid performance was not nearly enough to keep Western Carolina from dropping to 0-49 against FBS teams. And since 1986, the Kittymounts are 0-17 against Southeastern Conference foes and they still have a trip to Texas A&M coming up in November.
As for Tennessee?
“They are a physical football team,” Speir said. “They are a hard-nosed team, but we knew that coming in. We knew they had a disappointing loss last week, so it wasn’t going to be an off week for Tennessee.
“When you give them two turnovers and two touchdowns in the kicking game, you are just spotting an unbelievable good football team 28 points.”
Western Carolina 0 3 0 7 – 10
Tennessee 10 31 14 0 – 55
First Quarter
UT – Preston Williams 25 pass from Joshua Dobbs (Aaron Medley kick), 11:53
UT – FG Medley 20, 6:23
Second Quarter
UT – Hurd 5 pass from Dobbs (Medley kick), 13:06
UT – FG Medley 31, 5:12
UT – Hurd 8 run (Medley kick), 4:20
UT – Alvin Kamara 2 run (Medley kick), 2:53
WC – FG Logan Howard 32, 1:00
UT – Evan Berry 88 kickoff return (Medley kick), 0:45
Third Quarter
UT – Alvin Kamara 50 punt return (Medley kick), 11:28
UT – Williams 24 pass from Quinten Dormady (Medley kick), 7:45
Fourth Quarter
WC – Detrez Newsome 64 run (Howard kick), 10:59
Attendance – 102,136
YARDSTICK
WC UT
First Downs 9 25
Rushes-Yards 33-189 49-210
Passing Yards 90 237
Comp-Att-Int 11-22-1 21-29-0
Plays-Total Yards 44-279 70-447
Fumbles-Lost 4-2 0-0
Punts-Avg 10-40.4 5-41.8
Penalties-Yds 4-42 3-15
INDIVIDUALS
RUSHING – Western Carolina: Detrez Newsome 10-128, Corey Holloway 8-27, Darius Ramsey 8-20, Troy Mitchell 5-8, Wes Holcombe 2-6; Tennessee: Jalen Hurd 11-68, John Kelly 13-59, Alvin Kamara 7-47, Joe Young 9-18, Jauan Jennings 2-13, Joshua Dobbs 4-6, Alton Howard 1-1, Quinten Dormady 2-minus 2.
PASSING – Western Carolina: Mitchell 6-14-1 47, Holcombe 5-8-0 43; Tennessee: Dobbs 15-21-0 144, Dormady 6-8-0 93.
RECEIVING – Western Carolina: Karnorris Benson 3-38, Spearman Robinson 3-30, Ramsey 2-15, Holloway 2-5, Newsome 1-2; Tennessee: Preston Williams 3-98, Josh Malone 4-33, Ethan Wolf 3-31, Marquez North 3-29, Jennings 2-15, Hurd 2-12, Josh Smith 2-8, Von Pearson 1-9, Alex Ellis 1-2.
(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @larryfleming44)
Tennessee senior LaDarrell McNeil, who two weeks ago was unsure if his season had ended due to an injury, was back on the field Saturday and intercepted a Western Carolina pass in the first quarter. The Vols routed the Catamounts, 55-10.
photo by Dennis Norwood