These Flights are always concerned. It's a start.

Well … they always care.

These Flights are always concerned.

We learned that pretty quickly on Saturday, did not we?

After starting the season with two losses that should have been won, it was fair to wonder how much the Tennessee football team would be mentally poised to fight against Chattanooga on Saturday at Neyland Stadium.

We knew that Tennessee would be ready for the next weekend. To hide. In the swamps. Who would not be ready for this fight?

This weekend was different. It was a match against an opponent of the NCAA Division I FCS. It started at noon is. And that happened two weeks after these Flights suffered one of the most humiliating losses in the program's history (against Georgia State) and a week after a double-overtime defeat against BYU in a match they should have beat double digit.

When you put it all together, you usually get a so dirty diaper that no babysitter would change it without risk allowance.

But that's not what we got, right?

From the kickoff, the Tennessee players showed that they were hearing exactly what they were saying moments after the defeat of BYU: it would motivate them more than discourage them.

Junior running back Ty Chandler received the coup and sent him directly to the Tennessee River. And he would have reached the river if he had not been slightly slowed by a Moc and then triggered by another – the last man between Chandler and the end zone – on the 41-meter line of Chattanooga.

Six games and less than three minutes later, Chandler took over what he had started with the return of the attack kick and scored on a 13-yard run.

Chattanooga went on to score three goals, and the Flight Teams made an even bigger game: a clear punt blocked by Tyler Byrd and returned 24 yards for a touchdown by compatriot receiver Brandon Johnson.

The Moc attack quickly returned the ball to Tennessee three games later, when the senior security guard Nigel Warrior picked up the Chattanooga quarterback Nick Tiano and snaked 22 meters from the red zone. Warrior would have scored on the game after a nice save on the 16-yard line, but his left foot drifted out of bounds while succeeding.

Do not worry, though. Three Pieces Later, Junior Quarterback Flights Jarrett Guarantano – who wears the No. 2 jersey but was the # 1 public enemy around these pieces – scrambled to save time before throwing a 12-yard wide-opening shot Jauan Jennings for his fourth touchdown in the first nine quarters (and two overtime orders) of the season.

It took only 6 minutes and 24 seconds for the Vols against Chattanooga to do what they should have done at Georgia State two weeks ago: beat an adversary stranded in the dust before they even thought of rise to challenge him.

The game was over. All the hopes of the Mocs to linger against Big Orange Brother were smothered even before they had the chance to take oxygen.

Saturday's hot start allowed the Flights to do two things they absolutely had to do: regain some confidence for their teams first and second and give experience to those who were closer to the bottom of the bench.

That's what teams like Tennessee are supposed to do against Chattanooga. So do not do too much. But do not reject it either.

Second Year Head Coach in Tennessee Jeremy Pruitt commented a few moments after Saturday's game, which initially seemed hard to believe, but was 100% true.

"I think it's good for our guys to win," Pruitt said. "You look at our football team, its composition, in the last three seasons, it's the 10th win, so the guys who have been here for three or four years have not been very successful.

"And they need it."

Yes, they do it.

They need to win. Any victory is a great victory for these Flights.

After the BYU game, I wrote that the virus of defeat had infiltrated all the cells of the Tennessee football program and that it was something that would not be easy to cure. I still believe it. The factor-it left Tennessee years ago and it's no longer a program that simply wants to win in hard times. These Flights do not really know how to win tough games, and sometimes they do not even know how to win games that they have no business to lose.

To paraphrase Michael Palin from Monty Python, "Every victory is sacred".

Celebrate this victory. And let these players celebrate it too.

The Flights are now going to work next week with the head a little higher. And they deserved that right. They came out and started the match on Saturday exactly as they needed to, which allowed them to do important tasks for the health of the program in the short and long term.

If we know what kind of challenge this team is expecting over the next few weeks, you can be sure that coaches and program players know it too. Ninth in Florida. Date of opening. At home against Georgia, ranked third. Reception-votes State of Mississippi at home. Second row Alabama. If it's not sprinting in a field of rakes and rattlesnakes, what is it? It is not surprising that the SEC did not make a trip to the LSU, fourth in the standings, then to the New Orleans Stains instead of this open weekend, just for the funsies.

Tennessee must finally return to beat good football teams. Everybody knows it. Nobody is naive about it. But games like Saturday's are part of this process.

Sometimes you just have to remember what winning looks like.

Do not believe me? You may think that the senior flight crew member and the playmaker of the special teams Tyler Byrd.

"Come back every week [after losing]it's hard to stay stuck and stay engaged in the process and stay as a character, "Byrd said. "So, I mean, it was very important to start today, win and gain momentum for the next games."

Byrd's Saturday is an excellent study of perseverance. A former potential spy who has never been so close to the hype that followed him from high school in Tennessee is a senior catcher who rarely plays in attack. Rather than pouting, however, he took on the role of special teams he played and tried to make the most of them, even after the most embarrassing debut of the season.

If someone in a situation like Byrd does not stop smoking, this team may have more spine than we thought. It's a refreshing news.

At least they always care.

It's a start.