This Week on Rocky Top for August 12-18

Bullet points preserved by Pilot

Football

Even in the midst of fall camp, the big news around Tennessee football this week was, as Richard G. West predicted, the change in naming rights for Neyland Stadium. As you know by now, it’s “Neyland Stadium preserved by Pilot” and I’ve got some thoughts.

• Like a lot of other Vol fans, I don’t love it, but it could be worse. Unlike the “Food City Center” double-switch they pulled with Thompson-Boling Arena, nobody is actually expected to tag Neyland Stadium’s name with “Pilot.” In the end, Pilot gets a high-visibility advertisement:

  

  and Vol fans get some much-needed upgrades to areas like the south concourse:

  

  Of course the south endzone is where the cheapest seats, if such a thing exists anymore, reside. And that’s why it’s been waiting the longest for upgrades. So I’m glad to know that at least some of this partnership’s money is going to improving the less-luxurious parts of the stadium.

• The videos announcing this partnership were very well done, and if Peyton tells me something is ok, then it’s ok.

• At the same time, I totally understand fans who aren’t thrilled with this direction, even if some are hyperbolic:

there are some good ideas out there:

and this one, well, just the thought of us all high-fiving and yelling GO BEANS straight cracked me up:

• In addition to the Pilot announcement, Danny White tweeted that tickets for this season are almost all sold out again.

• In turn, fans began asking UTAD for a third deck on Neyland:

  volreport

  

  A post shared by @volreport

• The “Southbound and Down” blog posted 5 Reasons NC State will Beat Tennessee and it actually made me feel pretty good about that game, since I disagree with most of them.

• ESPN’s Top 100 College Players list has James Pearce Jr. at #1 (but we already knew that).

• Here’s an interesting look at a TE lead-blocking drill that Tennessee practices (as would be used when running Y-Insert, as we discussed in Part 3 of The Tennessee Playbook series).

• No. 1 QB in the class of 2026 and Tennessee commit Fazion Brandon reppin’ the Power T on his high school helmet:

  

  Baseball

• Tony V threw out the first pitch when Christian Moore’s Rocket City Trash Pandas visited Chattanooga this week.

• Chase Dollander has a 1.37 ERA in 5 Double-A starts.

• Jordan Beck smacked a RBI double in his return to the Rockies.

• Ben Joyce is rocking orange & white checkerboard cleats in Anaheim: