The Tennessee football program didn’t live up to head coach Josh Heupel’s ideals on Saturday night, two weeks after the Volunteers knocked off rival Alabama 24-17 at Neyland Stadium.
College Football: Tennessee Football was accused of cheating
Following their second win in three seasons over the Crimson Tide on Oct. 19, Heupel defended the program against accusations the program pipes in crowd noise. Alabama radio broadcaster Chris Stewart said during the game that Tennessee uses artificial noise to make the stadium louder than what their 101,000 fans can do on their own. Former Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron confirmed on X that the Volunteers add crowd noise to the stadium.
Heupel didn’t deny the accusations but said that the fans should be offended by the sentiment. He added the crowd should try to make even more noise when they hosted Kentucky in Week 10.
“I had not heard that (piping in crowd noise),” Heupel said. “Neyland doesn’t need anything fake piped into the stadium for that to be the loudest place in America. Hopefully, our fans take that personally…Enjoy this bye week and come back and it’ll be louder than ever the next time we’re at home.”
A quiet crowd against a tough Kentucky Football team
Tennessee’s crowd was noticeably more quiet during the game Saturday night against a Kentucky football team that was motivated to try and earn an upset. The Volunteers started the contest off slow, trailing the Wildcats 10-7 at halftime. Tennessee played better in the second half, outscoring Kentucky 21-8 in the second half to win 28-18 and improve to 7-1 (4-1 in the SEC) on the season.
However, Tennessee lost in one important way, they were unable to beat the 17.5-point spread over a Kentucky team that was 3-5 entering Week 10.
Tennessee could have been helped by adding extra sounds on Saturday, as the crowd noise against Kentucky was definitely less intense than what had been heard two weeks previously.
Tennessee has two more home games to gain an advantage over its opponents at Neyland Stadium, if the fans choose to yell at full (or fuller) strength. The Volunteers will host Mississippi State next Saturday.
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