Go ahead and enjoy this moment, Vols fans!
Despite most of the country expecting Tennessee and Josh Heupel to get demolished by Alabama in the Third Saturday in October, the opposite happened, with UT recording a thrilling 26-10 win. And you know what, this is a win that's going to mean a lot to Heupel for quite some time, which he made quite clear with his postgame comments.
After helping guide the Vols to their biggest win of the season, an emotional Heupel gave credit to his playmakers for believing and never backing down. If you ask us, the words below make UT's stunning upset victory going up against Kalen DeBoer even better.
"Yeah, defense, a phenomenal performance. For 60 minutes, they played their butts off," a hyped up Heupel said. "Fans were awesome. Great day, man. I love how the offense responded there in the second half."
Josh Heupel deserves his flowers for No. 14 Tennessee taking down No. 6 Alabama in Week 7
Anyone else ready to run through a wall right now? Seriously, with second-year QB George MacIntyre starting, plenty of people, including the talking heads at ESPN, assumed the Vols' offense wasn't going to be able to do enough to take down the mighty Crimson Tide. It looks like everyone went ahead and forgot about DeSean Bishop being on the roster.
Heupel knew that the ground game was going to have to take over for Tennessee to post a win, and that's exactly what happened at Neyland Stadium. With the Vols clinging to a 12-10 lead, Bishop extended the advantage to 19-10 with a TD run.
Then, late in the fourth quarter, Bishop turned off the lights on Bama with another TD run to push the lead to 26-10. On the day, the veteran power running back finished with 32 carries for 159 yards and two rushing scores. Take a bow, young man.
Defensively, and we're going to have plenty more on this in other pieces, Jim Knowles came up with an incredible game plan to fluster star quarterback Keelon Russell. He never looked comfortable running the offense, which played a huge role in Alabama seeing its record now falling to 5-2.
On the other side, Heupel has his Vols at 6-1 on the year, with the lone defeat coming to then No. 1 Texas earlier this campaign. No, this group has not been perfect, but these are the types of gutsy wins that show the mental fortitude inside of the locker room. And with Heupel making sure his studs were ready to rock, he deserves a ton of praise for this magical moment in Knoxville. What a win for the good guys.
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