Tennessee fans ended up in a recreation of 2022 with a field-storming effort on Saturday night after beating Alabama, complete with the tear-down of both goalposts in Neyland Stadium.
It wasn’t the same type of field storming as 2022, though, or even the recent one that Tennessee was involved in with the Arkansas crowd just a few weeks ago. The students didn’t pour onto the field as the clock struck zero and didn’t need to dodge the opposing team to get on the surface.
Tennessee’s field storming, as seen in the postgame video below, was more of a delayed effort.
The first group on the field appeared to be the recruiting section from the north endzone. With more security lined up next to the student section to prevent an immediate field storming, it didn’t seem like there was as much attention to the north endzone to prevent people from the other direction.
Rocky Top Insider’s field storming video shows the immediate moments of the game’s ending from the north endzone with people jumping over the wall. In the video, you can see Tennessee Director of Athletics Danny White attempting to slow down and stop the field-storming effort as it was getting started.
White enters the video at the 0:35-second mark.
As RTI’s video continues to move down the field, you can see people continuing to storm from the north endzone. At the 1:44 mark, though, you can still see a wall of security guards in front of the student section on the east sideline preventing students from getting on the field.
Students eventually began to get through the security but the video shows that an effort was made to prevent them from getting over the wall.
After about 60 seconds of a slow field storming with small pockets of students getting through, the floodgates began to open.
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It really didn’t appear as though Tennessee’s students were planning on storming and it sure didn’t look like they would be able to based on the security there, but eventually it became a can’t-miss free-for-all.
From there it seemed like the recreation of events from the 2022 game was inevitable. As Dixieland Delight blared from the speakers over the sounds of screaming students, many voices started shouting in the direction of both goalposts on the field – the same thing that happened in the 2022 event. Within a few minutes, the goalposts were down and being carried through the sea of orange on Shield-Watkins field.
Only three minutes had passed between the start of the final kneel down to being completely surrounded by Tennessee fans on the field.
The plus side of a delayed field storming is that it did allow time for the Alabama team to get off the field and avoid any unfortunate situations with opposing fans.
Tennessee will pay a $100,000 fine for their first offense breaking the SEC’s competition area entry policy. While Tennessee did pay a fine after the 2022 field storming against Alabama, all program’s violations were reset after an amendment to the rules in 2023. The scale for fines increases for repeated offenses.
The first offense will cost a school $100,000, followed by a $250,000 fine for a second offense and $500,000 for any violations after that.
