Okay, for those of you that watched the Outback Bowl from home and wondered what the heck happened, here's a tiny bit of insight from an attendee...

The thing that didn't come through on television was that Penn State had this game won from before the coin toss. When we arrived, Jeff, his sister and brother-in-law and I all found our seats in the upper deck. They were GREAT seats, even though they were high, and we were surrounded by fans from both teams. We were all set for a fun game.

Suddenly, the atmosphere in the stadium began to get really tense as the Penn State fans started shouting, "WE ARE," answered by "PENN STATE," over and over and over and over again. I must tell you that it was intimidating. Truly.

What was the most frustrating was that Tennessee had nothing to come back at them with. A few people tried, but it was mostly lame things like answering their "We Are" with "Yankees," or "drunk," or other various cusswords. Totally uninspring.

This one jerk stood up behind us and started yelling, "WE CAN. SPELL. WE CAN. ADD. WE CAN MULTIPLY." And as much as it pissed everybody off, (Even I thought about spelling some choice words for the guy) we had nothing to come back at them with that would really make a difference.

Every single offensive play of a Tennessee drive was drowned out by crowd yells that are usually reserved for punts and kick-offs. It was unbelievable. I felt so sorry for our guys on the field, because they were frantically raising their arms trying to get some inspiration from their fans. I fear that we failed them miserably.

So do I think that the fans were the only reason we lost? No. Our guys were playing as if it was the first game of the season. But honestly the play was pretty unimpressive on both sides of the field. It just wasn't a very good game.

But sadly, I do feel that the lack of unified support from the stands was definitely a contributing factor to the boys in orange not being able to get any confidence going. It felt like they never got over their nervousness, and I think that a large part of that unsettled feeling came from the overwhelming noise coming out of the Penn State folks.

So I know that those of you watching on TV were wondering why Tennessee performed so miserably after a pretty great season. I think this has a lot to do with it. Hopefully somebody can come up with a way to get the Volunteers unified so that this doesn't happen to us again. It was NO fun losing to those guys. They were so arrogant and cocky that it felt like losing to the Gators. But at least when that happens it's all in the family.

Now I know why my dad and Jeff's dad have always hated Penn State. Here's to next year.