Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel called upon the Vols’ fanbase to make their presence known on Saturday night.
During his 10 minutes on the SEC Coaches Teleconference call on Wednesday morning, Heupel noted the importance of having a home-field advantage with Kentucky in town this weekend as the Vols go with “Dark Mode” uniforms for the SEC border rivalry clash.
“Excited to get back into Neyland Stadium here with our football team on a Saturday night,” Heupel said to start his call. “Going against a good Kentucky team, an opponent that we’ve played for a long time here, historically. Dark Mode for us. Need a great effort by our fans. They got to be a part of the football game.”
This will be the third night game in the Vols’ last four Neyland Stadium contests as Tennessee looks to improve to 5-0 in their home stadium this season.
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Saturday’s contest will also be the first time that Tennessee plays at home since the controversial remarks from Alabama’s radio team during the Crimson Tide game on Oct. 19. Alabama play-by-play broadcaster Chris Stewart suggested that Tennessee piped in artificial crowd noise into the stadium, a comment that Tennessee AD Danny White and HC Josh Heupel quickly shot down.
Heupel even turned the comment into a challenge for the Tennessee fanbase, which fired fans up throughout the bye week.
“Neyland doesn’t need anything fake piped into the stadium for that to be the loudest place in America,” Heupel said last Wednesday afternoon. “Hopefully our fans take that personally, enjoy this bye week, and come back and be louder than ever next time we’re at home.”
Stewart did clarify that he meant just general artificial noise instead of artificial crowd noise, but the point was still ultimately the same.
Tennessee fans took let their voices be heard on social media all last week, but perhaps it’ll be Kentucky that pays the price for Alabama radio’s audio gaffe.
Tennessee’s Dark Mode reveal trailer has millions upon millions of views on social media since being released on Monday morning to only raise the profile and intensity of this weekend’s rivalry contest in Neyland Stadium. Make sure to stay tuned to Rocky Top Insider for live, on-site coverage of everything unfolding from Rocky Top on Saturday night.
No. 7 Tennessee will host Kentucky at 7:45 p.m. ET on Saturday night in Neyland Stadium.
