Tennessee Fans Deserve This Win More Than Anyone
I'm truly not a Tennessee Volunteers fan. Never have been. But my best friend is. He is insufferable about it. Honestly insufferable. I'm a Bowling Green Falcons & Indiana Hoosiers fan (Bowling Green = my alma mater, Indiana = both my parents went there). But I am not exaggerating when I say in that since I was 20 years old, when I met my best friend Zach, I have watched double the amount of Tennessee Volunteer football games, than my own 2 teams combined.
It's honestly infuriating. I would meet up with my friends on a college football Saturday. There could multiple top 25 matchups going on, but every Saturday we HAD to watch Tennessee. I remember him forcing us to watch a Tennessee vs Chattanooga game. That's not a joke. Not at all. Hand to god I remember it being an incredible day of college football, and we were at Zach's house playing pool with Tennessee vs Chattanooga on the big screen.
There have been long periods of time where I have actively cheered against Tennessee, because he was that insufferable. I genuinely wanted Tennessee to lose in every sport because I was so fucking sick of hearing about them. I would never say that to his face. I will only say it indirectly through a blog now that I live half a country away from him.
Why the fuck do we have to watch Tennessee every Saturday? Alabama and LSU are playing. They're both top 5 teams. I'm an Indiana Hoosiers fan - we're beating Maryland right now. Why is Tennessee more important than my team.
That was me every Saturday for 10 years. Literally infuriating.
But we let him do it. He fucking loves Tennessee. He loves Tennessee more than we love our teams. And we love him.
Now, he lives 500+ miles away from me, and I would still call him my best friend. Why else would I take this stupid fucking picture?
That picture was taken at his bachelor party. We went to Knoxville, Tennessee. In the summer. School wasn't even in session. While we were there, we made a day trip to campus. We snuck into the stadium and walked around on the field. That was what he wanted to do more than anything. So stupid.
And they just beat Alabama. They're about to be top 2 in the country (maybe?).
When Tennessee made that kick to beat Alabama, I started crying. I cry more than most people, so that doesn't necessarily mean a lot, but it's happening as I type this right now. I've watched Zach live or die over Tennessee Volunteers football games for a decade now. They could have been 0-6 and playing a game against Vanderbilt, and he would have been glued to the TV for all 4 quarters.
I've always kinda laughed at people who take sports too seriously. In my mind, it's just a game, it doesn't matter that much, just get on with your life. It honestly takes a lot for me to give a fuck about sports. When it comes to my teams, I'm just not wired that way. I cheer for them, but I certainly don't lose sleep when they lose. But to watch my best friend care so much about something for as long as I've known him. And to watch his team suck so fucking bad over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and etc.
This is pretty fucking cool to see them FINALLY win a big one. I wish I was with him right now. It sucks that this happened as soon as I moved away.
And spare me the "it's just a regular season game, there's still half a season left to go." - yeah no shit. But this is fucking huge for Tennessee. I cannot stress enough how much they fucking sucked for so long. And to beat Alabama of all teams? After getting embarrassed by them year after year. Un-fucking believable. I'm placing a bet on Tennessee to win the National Championship as soon as the odds come available (yes I know they just got cut in half but fuck you I'm doing it anyways).
#GBO🍊
Here's me and Zach shirtless. Love you brother ❤️
