Saturday’s Florida-Tennessee game saw a remarkable comeback from the Vols, who wound up with a 38-28 win over the Gators. Tennessee was down 21-3 at the half, though, and that sparked many media members and fans to write them off. One of the most prominent and most certain was Fox Sports’ Clay Travis, who went on Periscope and Facebook Live with a halftime rant captioned “Tennessee is dead: Florida murdered them” (language warning):
When the audio starts working (about 40 seconds in), we get Travis starting off with “Tennessee is f***ing dead, Austin motherf***ing Appleby (the Florida quarterback) just came out and execution-style Ned Starked us all. It’s like we were fleeing from the north and Austin motherf***ing Appelby, a Purdue-reject quarterback, came out here and just murdered everyone in Neyland Stadium. Cold, hard execution. Butch Jones looks like what he is, a high school gym teacher who somehow has worked his way with a flattop to a $5 million a year payday. He’s been totally exposed by Jim McElwain.” And it goes on from there.
Of course, Travis was far from the only prominent figure to write Tennessee off at halftime. The @OldTakesExposed Twitter account chronicled many of them:
Life lesson: Never count out Butch Jones #UTvsUF #RockyTop pic.twitter.com/oPpTikUkAf
— Freezing Cold Takes (@OldTakesExposed) September 24, 2016
Disappointed students leaving stadium at halftime. @6News #WATE #govols #beatflorida pic.twitter.com/EsrPuSwkWy
— Kelly Reinke (@WATEKellyReinke) September 24, 2016
Have a ball #Vols fans…#UFvsTENN pic.twitter.com/INYVAdN2Ri
— Freezing Cold Takes (@OldTakesExposed) September 24, 2016
Still, Travis’ venom was particularly notable, as was the very different way he headlined his post-game show:
@ClayTravis pic.twitter.com/C1v4ySE3qy
— Sykes (@HSykes16) September 25, 2016
Travis has long been known for his Tennessee fandom, which played a role in two of his books (about the SEC in general and Phil Fulmer’s final season), so it’s not surprising he was fired up about an incredibly-disappointing first half. However, the criticisms he made of the Vols in general and Jones in particular sure don’t seem to stand up well after that second-half comeback. Travis is far from alone there, but given his prominence and his vehemence, this is a particularly notable take-gone-wrong to spotlight.
[Clay Travis on Facebook]
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