traveling in foreign lands

Big Orange fans are scratching their heads trying to figure out what happened in Berkeley last Saturday. Did the Vols really lose to a bunch of surfer boys from California? Wasn’t this supposed to be THE year for UT?

The Big Orange Nation had excuses ready in case the unthinkable happened. The Vols couldn’t be expected to win with a quarterback with a broken pinky and their game breaker, LaMarcus Coker, was shelved for violation of team rules so the Vols might not be able to mount any sort of running attack.

With such young wide receivers, David Cutcliffe’s offense would rely heavily on the tight end, but the top TE went down in preseason with an injury which could render the passing attack impotent.

Those conspiracy buffs were already complaining about having to play the game with Pac 10 officials.

And finally, there was the revenge factor. The Golden Bears were more motivated than the Men in Orange after last year’s blowout on Rocky Top.

Almost 25,000 fans made the trek west with excuses in hand but none figured they would ever need them. After all, it was the SEC versus the Pac 10 and those sissy boys from California had little chance against a true college football powerhouse.

As it turned out, Ainge was nothing short of spectacular so there goes the pinky theory. Arian Foster had a great game minimizing the absence of Coker. TE Chris Brown caught seven passes so the injury to Brad Cottom wasn’t a factor. As for the officials, well, they flagged the hometown Bears for more than twice as many penalties as the Vols so we can ditch the conspiracy theory.

So what was it? There has to be an explanation.

I have my own theory. Regardless of the reason for the trip, it is always difficult to adjust when traveling in foreign countries like California. Leaving the comforts of the good old U.S. of A. is always a challenge. Getting used to a different culture, eating different foods, and speaking a different language makes it difficult to focus on something as trivial as a football game.

I suspect the Vols were in shock with the sight of the tree huggers who had taken up residence in the trees outside of Memorial Stadium. Folks from Tennessee see something moving in a tree and they think "dinner" and pull out their .22 and fire away. But these tree dwellers weren’t eatable. I bet not a single Vol had ever seen a critter in a tree with rolls of toilet paper. How could they concentrate on football in such strange surroundings?

The Vols were in this country they call California for only two days and that certainly isn’t long enough for their systems to adapt to different cooking. Two days with no grits, no cornbread, no fried chicken or anything else swimming in grease surely left the Vol players undernourished for the big game. Instead, it was a steady diet of organic fruits and vegetables along with some mouth watering tofu and a few other health foods they couldn’t pronounce.

No wonder they wore down in the fourth quarter.

And then there are the problems of being in another country and dealing with the challenges of a foreign language.

They don’t say "y’all" and look at you like you’re from outer space when you say "fixin to" or "whoopin’". The Bears obviously didn’t understand when the Vols, in the pregame warm ups said, "We’re fixin’ to give y’all a good old East Tennessee whoopin’."

If you’re still looking for excuses, blame in on Doug Dickey.

Yeah, everyone loves to hate Dickey and this is just another reason to do so. It was the former AD who decided it would do the Vols good to travel abroad and go to a foreign land to play a game. Forget all of the challenges of traveling to a foreign land. After all, it would be the powerful SEC against that little Pac 10 Conference.

The good news is the Vols don’t leave the country again this season. They don’t play another game north of the Mason Dixon line. Everything should be okay from here on out.