Best Plays of 2010 Final: Stars and Checkerboards vs. Near Disaster Averted

by Joel Hollingsworth on Jun 29, 2011 8:02 AM EDT in Tennessee Volunteer Football

And it all comes down to this: Stars and Checkerboards vs. Near Disaster Averted for the final. A TD pass not involving Tyler Bray and a pick six not involving Prentiss Waggner.

Near Disaster beat Firing Long Again relatively easily, but Stars and Checkerboards beat Stayin' Alive by only one vote. Does that mean Stars is vulnerable, or was the close contest just a result of a better matchup?

We'll keep the voting for this one open through the three-day holiday weekend and post the result on Tuesday, July 5th. The videos are re-posted below the jump.

Stars and Checkerboards:

Near Disaster Averted:

Poll

What is the Best Play of 2010 for the Tennessee Volunteers?

Stars and Checkerboards

64 votes

Near Disaster Averted

70 votes

134 votes | Poll has closed

Tweet Comment 26 comments | 0 recs |

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Comments

I voted for the Ole Miss play

Both of these are exhale moments – the UAB one was just about survival, but the Ole Miss one was the first real breath of fresh air of the season, the moment you knew we were going to win that game and could seriously start entertaining that things were going to stop getting worse and start getting better. UAB was bigger in the moment, but the Ole Miss play was more important to the narrative.

Rocky Top Talk

by Will Shelton on Jun 29, 2011 9:30 AM EDT reply actions

This is tough

Straightaway at the end of the season, the UAB play was certainly the one I remembered most vividly, but more in a way-too-close-brush-with-the-absolute-bottom-of-the-barrel-underneath-the-barrel kinda way. The Gordon play is awful pretty, but I think it suffers a little considering the manhandling of Ole Miss that followed. Certainly agree with you about it being the start of a particular narrative I want to believe in, though.

by _trey_ on Jun 29, 2011 10:08 AM EDT up reply actions

This is a toss up for me

But I’m going with the TD pass from Simms.

by golfballs03 on Jun 29, 2011 12:42 PM EDT reply actions

eh

Kinda depressing a play vs UAB is this deep… No way we remember that game more clearly than wins over Ole Miss and Kentucky or even the beginning signs of life against South Carolina or even late vs. UGa

by Caban on Jun 29, 2011 4:42 PM EDT reply actions

remember more clearly in 10 years

if Dooley is still here and successful

by Caban on Jun 29, 2011 4:43 PM EDT up reply actions

Ole Miss?

UAB was a better team than Ole Miss last year.

I agree with your premise in part, though. The fact that these two plays are in the finals for “Best Plays of 2010” is a sobering thought. Our fall from grace was sudden and steep. Hopefully the ship is righted.

Lou Brock loves Lamp.

by birdjam on Jun 29, 2011 5:13 PM EDT up reply actions

No, no they weren't.

...just apologize for not thanking me.

by kidbourbon on Jun 30, 2011 8:32 AM EDT up reply actions

Ole Miss was absolutely dreadful last year.

If UAB had a kicker, they’d have probably been 6-6.

I stand by my original statement.

Lou Brock loves Lamp.

by birdjam on Jun 30, 2011 4:25 PM EDT up reply actions

UAB and Ole Miss had identical W/L records

UAB is in the C-USA
Ole Miss is in the SEC.

One can draw a fairly sound conclusion from that alone.

Further, my homeboy Bill Connelly had Ole Miss Ranked 16 slots higher at the end of the year than UAB: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaa

Jeff Sagarin had Ole Miss 32 slots higher than UAB: http://www.usatoday.com//sports/sagarin/fbt10.htm?loc=interstitialskip

The combo ranking from Brian Fremeau (sp?) and Bill Connelly has Ole Miss 19 slots higher than UAB: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/fplus2010

In short, I do not believe there to be any objective evidence one could use in support of an argument that UAB was better last year at the game of football than Ole Miss.

...just apologize for not thanking me.

by kidbourbon on Jul 4, 2011 9:13 PM EDT up reply actions

All of that Ole Miss love was because they played in the SEC.

Which of course shouldn’t be ignored. But look at how these teams did against common opponents (including us.) That’s just as objective as the fancy sabermetric lists.

But I will close with this: Ole Miss lost to Jackson State.

Lou Brock loves Lamp.

by birdjam on Jul 5, 2011 10:35 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions

My bad

Jacksonville State.

My point remains.

UAB lost in 2OT to us because their kicker had a historically bad day. (They had also lost to FAU in the opener because of a blocked FG. These are the two games that would have made them 6-6 with a good – or even average – kicker.) They also lost by 5 on the road to Mississippi State.

Against the same two opponents, Ole Miss lost by 38 to us, and they lost by 8 to Mississippi State at home.

What’s more, the 4 teams Ole Miss managed to beat last year really don’t impress me any more than the teams UAB beat. I guess Kentucky and Fresno State were OK, but their other two victories came against Tulane and Louisiana-Lafayette. Looking at how terribly they played the rest of the season, I really think Ole Miss would have done about the same even with UAB’s schedule. Three of UAB’s victories were against bowl teams.

Lou Brock loves Lamp.

by birdjam on Jul 5, 2011 3:38 PM EDT up reply actions

gotta go with UAB in the end

It’s a great play, but I’ve just never been able to get behind the Ole Miss one. I still rather enjoy that game-ending UAB play…. So, I know you’ve done 50 best Fulmer games, 20 worst losses, and even 10 best Tennessee moments of the decade, but have we have ever thought about a best moments in football in say 20-25 years? We could pull out moments like the miss at the end of the Miracle at South Bend, Chuck Webb at the Cotton Bowl, a Jay Graham run, Peerless Price in the Fiesta Bowl, Peyton Manning being Peyton, etc. That would be a fun poll to do sometime, as this great website is good at polls and engaging us as the readers.

by VolfromBYU on Jun 29, 2011 6:17 PM EDT reply actions

That’s a fantastic idea. We’ll talk about that.

Chief Editor, Rocky Top Talk. Chief in Charge of Woo, Gameday Depot.

by Joel Hollingsworth on Jun 29, 2011 7:04 PM EDT up reply actions

More and more of these plays are popping up individually on YouTube

which very much helps your idea

Rocky Top Talk

by Will Shelton on Jun 29, 2011 9:54 PM EDT up reply actions

Yankeefan and Tubesox

FTW.

______________________________________________
That's (333333jorkland)^2 and $$$$$$$$immons to you, chump.

by bobothevol on Jun 29, 2011 10:37 PM EDT up reply actions

Agree with those two, bobo

I love yankee and tubesox for that. I go to their YouTube pages for a Vol pick me up. Plus, I’m occasionally checking to see if Yankeefan has added more games… cough cough Ohio State Citrus Bowl, 1999 National Title Game, if I had to plug a few to add. So unrelated, but Will/Joel/whoever, when are the podcasts coming back? I remember joining the chat as a guest and discussing where to go curling in Knoxville, musta been Olympic time.

by VolfromBYU on Jun 30, 2011 6:57 PM EDT up reply actions

Podcasts are returning very, very soon

with authors from the Maple Street Press Annual

Rocky Top Talk

by Will Shelton on Jun 30, 2011 9:44 PM EDT up reply actions

98 Florida 4th quarter, 2001 Florida game full game

Heel for school, Vol for life!

Go Bolts! Out West, go Preds! Southern hockey solidarity!

by Incipient_Senescence on Jul 1, 2011 7:50 PM EDT up reply actions

The 98 Florida game is up there

And the 2001 game is too, I think.

The epic Alabama and Arkysaws overtimes are up, too.

______________________________________________
That's (333333jorkland)^2 and $$$$$$$$immons to you, chump.

by bobothevol on Jul 2, 2011 2:47 AM EDT up reply actions

the 98 Florida game is missing the 4th quarter

which means that Deon Grant’s epic pick is nowhere on the internet.

Heel for school, Vol for life!

Go Bolts! Out West, go Preds! Southern hockey solidarity!

by Incipient_Senescence on Jul 2, 2011 10:42 AM EDT up reply actions

and I thought the 2001 just had extended highlights, not a whole game

but I could be wrong there.

Heel for school, Vol for life!

Go Bolts! Out West, go Preds! Southern hockey solidarity!

by Incipient_Senescence on Jul 2, 2011 10:42 AM EDT up reply actions

Ah yes

The glorious glorious Deon Grant pick. The aesthetic beauty of that play is unparalleled. Grant came out of nowhere; leaped; contorted his body while hanging in the air long enough that it might meet some definitions of flight; and of course came down in stride.

Deon Grant wasn’t as good an all-around player as Eric Berry, but he remains my all-time favorite player (Bray could catch him….we’ll see).

...just apologize for not thanking me.

by kidbourbon on Jul 4, 2011 9:33 PM EDT up reply actions

Hard choice

I didn’t really like either choice for best play of the year. Was the UAB play a defining moment of the season? Was it an amazing play? Yeah, of course, but it also has the stigma of being against UAB, who should have been handled in the first half, not double overtime.

Gordon’s pick-six was again an amazing play, but it was a defensive play that didn’t end up mattering much in a blowout.

I think I would pick any Bray TD over these two plays (esp. vs. South Carolina), or either of the Simms TDs vs. Florida. So I voted Gordon as a sort of protest, since I firmly believe that the UAB play will win.

by rbird8 on Jun 30, 2011 12:21 PM EDT reply actions