2025 Week 2

Under the lights at Neyland, Tennessee and Miami squared off in a CBS national broadcast. The atmosphere was electric and exciting, fans wanted to see a great battle take place. To say they got their's money worth was an understatement.

Miami came in with an A rated defense, Tennessee is looking at a C+ defense. Miami and Tennessee both had B rated offenses, so it looked to be a great game from the grading standpoint.

Miami had forced UF QB transfer Marlon Bradford to throw three interceptions in the first quarter. Seeing this Coach Batten put in red-shirt freshman Patrick Herman to start off the second quarter. Miami had kicked two field goals to take a 6-0 lead from Bradford's three interceptions. Herman was managing the game pretty good throwing for six yards, but late in the second quarter after getting a key fourth down attempt, he got sacked and was out for the rest of the game. During the first quarter, Miami's QB D. Todd had a man-crush on Mark Odom that he threw him the ball two times during the first quarter.

So, Mark Mitchell came in to play the rest of the half and managed to only let Tennessee get a 49 yard field goal to go down at half 6-3.

In the third quarter, Tennessee was very stagnant on offense as they managed to get stopped two times before Miami got a decent drive together. On that drive they managed to work their way down field and get a [b]56][/b] yard field goal. Getting the ball back Tennessee managed to march down field on the arm of Mark Mitchell and only managed to come up with a 27 yard field goal to trim the lead 9-6.

Miami forced an Mark Mitchell interception and were driving pretty good. They got in a offensive funk around the 30 yard line and tried for a field goal. It was a good try for the field goal but the Cane's kicker hit it wide left. This was a huge swing in momentum and Tennessee was marching. Mitchell had a good drive throwing for 36 yards and helped set up a key third down and 14. On the third down, Tennessee called the HB slam play out of the Ace-Normal and Fred Barron took it to the house for 35 yards. Tennessee took the lead 13-9.

Miami got the ball back with about three minutes left and had a good drive going till Dominique Todd forgot that Tennessee was wearing the all Orange jerseys and threw a perfect strike to Martin Hawkins. This interception gave Tennessee about 2 minutes left, and Miami had all their timeouts. Miami used two timeouts and managed to get a stop after we got a first down. Canes were getting the ball back with about 38 seconds left in the game, more than enough time to throw a deep bomb and win the game. However, Todd didn't see another Volunteer and managed to lose the game on that play. Tennessee walks away winners over Miami 13-9.

"A great defensive battle was seen here today. My Vols defensive talent is getting better and getting a tough 13-9 win over Miami only helps our national reputation. My wife, Samantha, taped the game so I'll go home and enjoy the game and listen how the commentators were and what they talked about during the game. I am glad we had a great turnout again, we have to go on the road for three straight weeks starting with Penn State so I know they enjoyed the win. Kudos to my Offensive Coordinator David Minton for coming up with a good game plan to get 13 points against a super tough Miami defense." said Coach Batten