Theo Von is a famous standup comedian and podcaster with a Netflix special. The Covington, Louisiana native is a LSU dropout, but he’s abandoned the Bayou Bengals for the Vols after attending his first game at Neyland Stadium. last fall.
Former Tennessee quarterback Josh Dobbs invited Von and fellow comedian and Barstool Sports personality Caleb Presley to be his guest at the Tennessee-Florida game last September. This included sideline passes which put the duo right in the thick of the madness at Neyland Stadium.
While Presley grew up a Tennessee fan and was a walk-on quarterback at North Carolina, Von had little college football fan experience and discussed his experience on an episode of his This Past Weekend podcast.
“We’re just on the bench,” Von said. “We’re on the bench, dude. I taped up some guys hand— I’m not even joking. I taped up some guys hand. The snapper. … There was a point where I think we honestly almost could have got in the game. I think if I hadn’t been there vaping someone would have put me in.”
Von witnessed a tremendous atmosphere at Neyland Stadium that late September afternoon. As the Vols withstood a late Florida comeback to beat the Gators, 38-33, for the first time since 2016, a plan began to sprout from Von and Presley’s brains.
They were going to give Josh Heupel a Gatorade bath.
“There’s 15 seconds left,” Von said. “We go to get a Gatorade jug. We go over and there’s a guy right when we walk up to it, he goes ‘no. no. no!’ We thought we don’t have a chance, bro. This is that little liquid warden. This dude is shutting us down. … He goes, ‘No! If you’re going to Gatorade the coach use water.’ So he points at the water jug so we have the water jug.”
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So began one of the funniest and most underrated moments of Tennessee football’s 2022 season. After the program’s second win over SEC East rival Florida since 2004, two random dudes not apart of the Volunteer football program gave Heupel a Gatorade, well water, bath
“We’re not even on this team! I went to LSU, if I’m real honest man,” Von joked. “But I will say, man, that I’ve never felt more part of a team at this point ever in my life. … We start looking for the coach and we went the wrong way and there he is. You could tell he’s excited, man. You could feel the energy coming off him. People are cheering. We’re cheering. We just baptized him, baby.”
The scene’s absurdity is unmatched. You can watch them douse Heupel starting at the 5:40 mark of this video. While Von is one of the two people that made it happen, its ridiculousness isn’t lost on him either.
“Somebody said, ‘have two people who aren’t on a team ever Gatorade showered the coach, dude’,” Von said while laughing. “I don’t know but it was a dream come true.”
The afternoon in Neyland Stadium capped off with a Gatorade shower was enough to convert the Louisiana native into a Tennessee fan. Maybe we’ll even get a second Von-Presley Gatorade shower in coming years.
“There is no way I could ever not cheer for that program now, man,” Von said. “Especially after all we did against Florida. … It was just an amazing place to see a football (game). You will love it if you get the chance. … Go Vols!”
