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Tennessee football: Mercedes-Benz Stadium roof won’t be ready for Vols opener vs Georgia Tech

By Caleb Calhoun

ATLANTA, GA - JANUARY 14: A general veiw of the new Mercedes- Benz Stadium prior to the game of the Atlanta Falcons and Seattle Seahawks on January 14, 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
ATLANTA, GA - JANUARY 14: A general veiw of the new Mercedes- Benz Stadium prior to the game of the Atlanta Falcons and Seattle Seahawks on January 14, 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) /
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Tennessee football’s opener against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets has a snag. The Mercedes-Benz Stadium roof won’t be ready for the Volunteers.

Probably the worst part of Tennessee football’s recent history happened in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.

So it’s only fitting that the replacement for that cursed stadium would have issues immediately…as the Vols would be one of the first teams to play an official game in it.

According to Alec McQuade of WXIA in Atlanta, the retractable roof at Mercedes-Benz stadium will not be ready for its first event.

That’s the weekend the Alabama Crimson Tide face the Florida State Seminoles and when the Vols face the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.

It’s the opening game for all four teams.

Of course, Atlanta fans can use it as a sign of their curses as a sports town. After all, the city’s only championship came in 1995, when the Atlanta Braves won the World Series in a strike-shortened year.

On top of that, the Atlanta Falcons losing the Super Bowl last year in the way they lost it could add to the curse.

But Vols fans who love Peyton Manning felt the same punch in the gut with that loss.

So for Tennessee football, this just appears to be another curse that comes with playing in Atlanta. The only win the football program has this century in this city came in 2012, when they defeated the N.C. State Wolfpack.

They ended up going 5-7 that year anyway and fired Derek Dooley. So it was the opening game to an eventual disastrous season.

Every other time they played in Atlanta, they lost. That most notably happened in 2001, when they blew the SEC Championship game to the LSU Tigers and Nick Saban.

Ironically, Saban’s team will be one of the teams playing that first weekend as well.

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