Tennessee Vols : Best Entrance In All Of Football
The Tennessee Vols do not have just “one” of the best entrances in College Football. They have “the” best entrance in College Football.
The resurgence of the Tennessee Vols football program is about to become a reality. The players are ready. The coaches are ready. The fans are more than ready. It is time.
The Vols have the talent, although very young talent, to begin their ascent back to competing for the top spot in the SEC East. Tennessee is still a year away from being extremely good, but they look like a completely different team from when head coach Butch Jones came in three years ago.
I have to give it to the fans. They have stuck with the Vols through bad and worse the past few years. The dark days fell on Neyland Stadium with the dismissal of National Championship Coach Phillip Fulmer in 2008. He was followed buy the one and done Lane Kiffin, and then by the incompetent Derek Dooley. Those were like the days of the plague.
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But things have changed under now head coach Butch Jones. Jones has put up back to back top 8 recruiting classes, and it is quite evident when you look at the Vols on the field. The athletes look like football players now. Better than that, they look like SEC football players again.
Tennessee is not ready to be at the top of the College Football ranks on the field….yet. But they are always number one in College Football in one aspect. The entrance the Vols make onto Shields-Watkins Field inside Neyland Stadium is simply the best entrance around.
The Vols gather in the tunnel of the North end zone. The Pride of the Southland Band forms a T from the end zone to near midfield. 102, 455 fans clad in orange and white stand in anticipation and excitement to see their Vols.
As the crowd gets louder and louder, the Pride separates their lines to open into a huge T. As the T opens the team runs through the T and pandamonium ensues. Fans lose their minds! Cheers, high fives, hugs, chest bumps, and yes, even tears, come from inside the mammoth stadium. It is a sight every football fan should see.
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Tennessee first started the tradition back in 1965. Head Coach Doug Dickey had the T open on the East sideline as the Vols raced to the home side of the field on the West side. It was later changed to the end zone.
I realize others have great entrances as well. Clemson’s entrance is impressive. South Carolina’s entrance is right up there if they didn’t have that rooster crowing in the background. That is kind of laughable. Florida State’s Seminole is awesome as is USC’s Trojan. Oklahoma’s Boomer Sooner Wagon and Texas’ Longhorn running the field is fantastic. But none compare to Tennessee. It is shear orange and white madness.
The entrance also gets help from the outstanding pre-game activities of course. First of all the Vol faithful gather hours early for Vol Walk. The players walk through a sea of fans wearing orange and white on their way to the stadium. I know people that went to other schools that have become Vol fans the first moment they witness this event. It is that powerful, and it is just what you do. You don’t go to a game at game time in Knoxville. You go hours early. Heck, some go days before.
The colorful tailgates, tents, and RV’s along the Tennessee River are unbelievable. Add the legendary Vol Navy that docks their yachts, houseboats, and cruisers at the stadium and it is stunningly beautiful on a Fall afternoon.
Add the tradition of the Pride of the Southland and you have another incredible lead-in to the entrance. After the Pride stops in front of the visiting fans section to play that team’s fight song (one of the classiest things going in the SEC), the power T is formed beautifully marching from South to North. Rocky Top blasts and then the band begins forming the T. The rest you know.
This season Oklahoma will come to Neyland early. It will absolutely be crazy. If I was the network, I would put the camera on the band as they form the T and not say a word. Just show the entrance. That will show what Tennessee fans already know. It is number one in that category.