There was jubilation, exuberance, and general madness after Tennessee beat Alabama for the first time in 16 years, but one man stood in the stadium waiting for what would happen to him.
There is a person who was born in Alabama. It was a life-changing event when the Vols took down the Tide. He wasn't surprised when he saw tens of thousands of Tennessee fans storm the field for the first time in over a decade.
In the last 12 years, that program has won a lot of games. "We haven't yet." The rivalry between Tennessee and Florida is not the biggest one. The states are Tennessee and Alabama. I am from there. It was a big victory. It was the first time in 16 years that you were aware of it. It's impossible to stop it. It's time to let it go.
The hysteria was understood by the man. He did not have to like it. This was his job as the director of sports surface management for the Vols. This was a once-in-a-century event for him, as he has overseen all the playing surfaces for Tennessee athletics. What about the goal posts? Dunked into the river. The school was fined $100,000 by the SEC for fans entering the field which was littered with garbage, a plot of turf intended for 22 players instead mashed by thousands of delirious fans.
Immediately after the game, Tennessee asked for a crowdfunded replacement for the goalposts. It was already under control thanks to years of watching and talking to other guys, according to the man. A close-knit group of turf managers live behind the scenes.
Most of the SEC guys heard from me. You kind of expect it when the goal posts come down. We had everything set up and ready to go. We've been bad for so long that we've seen a lot of goal posts come down. All right, man, this is what you're in for, and you just learn from everyone.
He said he received a lot of text messages. Some people were saying that nobody likes to see grass ripped up. The majority of these guys have been through it.
One of the celebrations got the attention of his colleagues. A woman ripped up a large piece of the checkerboard at the end zone. A field manager at Oklahoma said he would need bail money if this happened to him.
If this happens to me, I'll need bail money. pic.twitter.com/zIreAL8mQn
— Jason Faires (@JasonFaires) October 18, 2022
The field for the home game against UT-Martin was trashed a week before the game, but Seybold was able to pull off a perfect field for the game.
You're going from the highs of beating Alabama that you hadn't done in 16 years to playing an FCS team. Our fan base doesn't care if we play a high school.
The entire shed of lawn implements was used. We're talking a lot of things to vacuum the grass. There is a lot of grass being vacuumed. There is a unique challenge after the crowd spills onto the field.
When you first look at the cigars, what is that? They got shredded after being dropped. The winner of the rivalry always smokes cigars that are covered in tobacco. We couldn't keep up with the amount of clothes. What would you do if you walked out of here?
There was enough evidence to suggest that not many of those glass cigar tubes went to someone else.
Dr. John Sorochan was a professor in the department of plant sciences at Tennessee. The center for athletic field safety on the University of Tennessee campus is run by Sorochan, a consultant for the NFL Players Association who inspects field safety at neutral site games.
Sorochan picked up seven heaping handfuls of broken glass from the cigar caps. It was insane.
The staff went out and walked the field because they were afraid of being cut.
The whole field was blown off by hand. We flag a patch of glass whenever we find it. After we returned with Shop-Vacs, we took all the glass.
There were a few other surprises. The Vols wear sunglasses at night. It wore well.
"We were amazed at what we saw." I'm telling you about Costa Del Mar and other places. I think they made a lot of money in Knoxville this week because a lot of them were smashed. $200 is how much it costs to pick up a frame. This is adding up quickly.
Sorochan surprised himself.
He said that the bottle was empty and that the big handle was empty. It was someone who got that into the stadium.
The field crew spent most of the night cleaning up the trash. The real work began to grow the green stuff again. The biggest concern was that the field was made of sand and that it would be hard for fans to see.
Sorochan has a doctorate and we'll let him do the calculations on how many people made their way down.
The average person is around one and a half square feet. There were probably 50,000 people outdoors.
The agronomic catastrophe was caused by fans who wanted to take home their own souvenirs. Even if he didn't want to tell her, they knew who the fan was who was helping her to pieces of the checkerboard. Several eBay listings soon popped up, with Neyland grass fetching anywhere from $3 for a few sprigs to more than $100 for a single listing with an image of a fan holding up a picture of the grass with the field in the background.
Tennessee fans don't want you to get on their side. They know who she is. She was said to have done this in 1998 when the Vols upset Florida. Extra grass lay around. We'll go with that story if it makes you sleepy.
He had it in his possession. He was aware of who did it. Carolina Green is a Charlotte company that specializes in athletic sod and sometimes will re-sod entire football fields in the middle of a season.
One big roll can weigh over 2000 pounds. A piece of sod that is an inch and a quarter thick will weigh about 100 pounds when patched, and it is so tight that a 300-pound football player can stomp on it.
He is a grass man. He doesn't think taking that specific plot of turf home, getting into the weeds and explaining why is appealing.
Sorochan said that it was overseeded with a perennial ryegrass. You can grow it at home, but it's just grass. It's possible to buy it anywhere.
We know that doesn't mean anything. The grass at Home Depot was not from the same patch of sod where Josh Heupel had just defeated Nick Alabama.
The current president of the Sports Field Management Association is James Bergdoll. He said that he's a graduate of a Big Ten school and didn't understand the level of obsession. He sympathized with his colleagues across the state.
It's crazy to see them do that in this part of the country. "They see this as an opportunity to say, 'I was on the field when we beat Alabama for the first time in 16 years' and here's a piece of the grass that came up from the field.'" For the fans to do what they've been doing at the cost of all that work is a hard pill to swallow.
The field crew did a great job. It took a week to complete. He sprayed the grass on Saturday night.
On Sunday, his crew came back with the blowers to get it clean again. They covered the field on Monday because the temperature didn't get above 36 degrees on Tuesday. The day before, they had painted the goalposts. They started painting the field on Wednesday and finished it on Thursday. On Saturday, they kicked off at noon, with checkerboards intact, and a lush, green, glass-free field ready for a win.
If it happens every 25 years or so, it's fine with Seybold. He said seeing fans on the field after a game made him sad. We would be like, "Come on everybody, what are we doing?" if we beat UT-Martin. "'Let's be smart. I'm proud of our fans. We beat Florida for the first time in 10 years, then beat them again this year for the first time since then, and they didn't rush it either.
He exhales now that it's over. Even if he isn't comfortable with it.
"I don't want anyone to know who I am." There's a problem if they know who I am. Unless something terrible happens, nobody knows it.
Nobody knew his name this weekend, that's a good thing.
He said that it was a 24 year difference. We will accept the $100,000 fine and move on.
The Vols are back and can expect to win, so there won't be a reprise anytime soon.
Sorochan said that the field will go back to what it was in the '90s and early 2000s.
The grass is green again.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
