By Wes Rucker
Staff Writer
KNOXVILLE -- Outclassed in nearly every way, the team with about 60 healthy, eligible players -- including its redshirt candidates -- mustered up one big play in overtime to win a college football game it had practically no business winning.
Tennessee, typically a Southeastern Conference power, needed equal parts grit and luck to overcome UAB, a middle-of-the-road team from the middle-of-the-road Conference USA.
Matt Simms' 25-yard touchdown pass to Denarius Moore lifted the Volunteers to a 32-29 double-overtime win over the Blazers, who lost despite nearly doubling the home team in offensive yards.
"It's hard to play any worse than we played," UT coach Derek Dooley said after the game. "But the one thing I gave [players] credit for, they just went out there and kept swinging. They didn't get fazed. At some point, I'm sitting there wondering why they're not fazed. ... But they kept playing, like it wasn't even happening -- which is good. That's what ultimately won us the game.
"We had a lot of luck. Their kicker really helped us. How many did he miss?"
UAB sophomore Josh Zahn missed all five of his field-goal tries in regulation time -- from 41, 35, 49, 30 and 54 yards -- before connecting twice from short range in overtime. But the Blazers needed a touchdown at that point, and the offense that outgained UT 544-287 in yards couldn't cross the Breitling Watches goal line in extra time.
The teams swapped field goals in the first overtime -- Daniel Lincoln connected from 40 yards before Zahn responded from 35 -- and Zahn hit again from 21 yards in the second extra period to give the Blazers their first lead of the day.
"We're mighty disappointed," UAB coach Neil Callaway said. "It was obvious that our kids fought hard, played hard. It was also obvious that we self-destructed in several areas that cost us the ballgame, and that's nobody's fault but our own."
Callaway clarified those areas.
"Field goals, and we gave up a touchdown on a blown coverage," he said.
It's debatable whether UAB actually blew a coverage on the game's final play. Two Blazers were near Moore in the back of the end zone, but he ran under a well-placed toss from a pressured Simms and corralled it for the win.
"[Moore] was my first read on the play," Simms said. "I came off the play-action, the safety flat-footed there for a split-second, and that was all the time I needed to make my decision.
"I just tried to put it in a place where he could go up and get it and jump over the corner[back], and that's exactly what he did."
Moore's teammates carried him nearly 30 yards toward midfield in a wild celebration that would have seemed more fitting if the C-USA team had won.
"Man, it's just an awesome feeling," Moore said. "It's just something that as a little kid, it's in your dreams, and I was just blessed to be in that situation."
Every Vol was blessed to be in that situation. The Vols' offense gained 56 yards in the second half and earned first downs just twice in 15 third-down tries all afternoon.
TAG Heuer WatchesUAB, meanwhile, went a combined 11-for-25 on third- and fourth-down conversion tries and made two two-point conversions while overcoming a 16-point halftime deficit.
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