OneManGang
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Tennessee vs The Maxims vs Missouri
The Missouri Tigers dominated Tennessee in virtually every statistical category Saturday. Unfortunately for the Tigers, they could not dominate the one statistic that really mattered, the final score. Given the reactions to our recent presidential tussle, it is somewhat surprising that Mizzou supporters have not taken to the airwaves to demand fundamental changes to the way the outcome of college football games is decided.
******
Exactly one year after the Chancellorsville Campaign which was discussed earlier, the Army of the Potomac, this time under the command of That Damned Old Goggle-eyed Snapping Turtle, General George Meade, again moved across the Rapidan River to challenge Marse Robert Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. Once again the dank and choked forests around Chancellorsville echoed to artillery and rifle fire. Butternut-clad Confederates and Union troops grappled in conditions more akin to the Argonne Forest of 55 years later or the jungles of the South Pacific in World War II.
The fighting was brutal. Small units blundered into each other in the tangled underbrush and these small firefights quickly escalated as each side rushed in reinforcements. Nobody in the command structure of either side really knew what the hell was going on but fought with what they had where they found the enemy and prayed that Providence would smile on them. For the men in the lines it was a nightmare. The underbrush was tinder dry and soon raging forest fires swept the battlefields. Many wounded on both sides with otherwise survivable wounds perished as the flames reached them.
Finally the Union had enough and pulled back a bit. Now, this was the point where every other foray by the Army of the Potomac had come a cropper. Every other time, the Union host would retreat back to the friendly confines of Washington and its massive string of forts to lick its wounds and prepare for the next offensive guaranteed to capture Richmond and thus end the rebellion. Lee, for his part fully expected this.
Lee was facing a different adversary this time. Meade's boss was one Ulysses Grant who had assumed the mantle of Commanding General of the United States Army after successfully ejecting Braxton Bragg and the Army of Tennessee off their perches on Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain around Chattanooga. Grant was an implacable foe. When stuffed shirts oinked to Lincoln that Grant had a drinking problem and should henceforth be fired, the President growled, I cannot spare this man, he fights.
Unlike his predecessors, who were fixated on the capture of Richmond, Grant issued a terse order to Meade, Lee's army. This MUST be your objective. Grant understood that without the Army of Northern Virginia, the fall of Richmond was inevitable.
On the 7th of May, Lee discovered that the Union host was gone. He relaxed for a brief moment until scouts told him that far from retreating, Meade was moving southeast. The next day the two armies found each other at Spotsylvania Courthouse. Again it was a bloody and confused stalemate. Again the Union pulled back and again moved to the south and toward Richmond. Again Lee maneuvered to position himself between the Confederate capital and the Union host.
And so it continued. To the North Anna, through a hundred or so firefights and clashes along the approaches to Richmond. The Armies met again at Cold Harbor, which was a disaster for the Union brought about by an ill-advised frontal assault that did nothing but leave heaps of dead Federals in front of Lee's hasty fortifications.
The Army of the Potomac did not quit, however. They again moved, this time south of Richmond to Petersburg. Exhausted by the May fighting both armies dug in and glared at each other across a No Man's Land eerily foreshadowing the conditions along the Western Front a half century later.
For the next ten months the two armies probed each other and occasionally attempted a frontal assault only to be bloodily repulsed. The difference was that while the Army of the Potomac was receiving massive numbers of reinforcements and had established a relatively efficient logistical system, Lee could do no such thing. The Confederacy could not raise the needed men, nor after Little Phil Sheridan peeled the Shenandoah Valley, could they even regularly feed the ones they had.
Eventually the Army of the Potomac moved again, this time around Lee's right flank. Lee had no answer. He had to pull out of his trenches and abandon Richmond. A series of running fights developed along the Appomatox River as Lee tried to reach the mountains. Finally, the Old Fox was brought to bay and on 12 April 1865 met Grant in the parlor of Wilmer McLean's house and surrendered.
******
No matter how many times the Tigers scored Saturday, no matter how many times Mizzou runners gashed Tennessee's tatterdemalion defense, the Vols had an answer. It was as though HeadVol Jones had told his troops, The final score. That MUST be your objective.
Instead of a goggle-eyed snapping turtle though, the Vols turned to their Steely-eyed Missile Man to put the Missourians to fly.
And he did.
So how did the team do compared to the Maxims?
1. The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win.
Tennessee's defense seemed to be chasing its own tail most of Saturday but made enough adjustments at half to thwart the Tigers late in the game and enable the offense and one Jonathan Kongbo -to put up enough points to win.
2. Play for and make the breaks. When one comes your way SCORE!
The aforementioned Jonathan Kooooongboooooo!!!!
3. If at first the game or the breaks go against you, dont let up PUT ON MORE STEAM!
Verily. The Vols never quit. Even on defense, they kept clawing and scratching until the final gun. Well done, gentlemen, well done.
4. Protect our kickers, our quarterback, our lead and our ballgame.
Lacking most of his original offensive line, Joshua Dobbs did a wonderful job of protecting himself by forcing Mizzou to hesitate and watch for him to run or to go all out to rush his passes. He lit them up with his feet and with his arm.
5. Ball! Oskie! Cover, block, cut and slice, pursue and gang tackle THIS IS THE WINNING EDGE.
Once again the Vols got destroyed by the opponent's running game. As per last week, once again, it did not matter. That said, the defense throttled Mizzou when it mattered.
6. Press the kicking game. Here is where the breaks are made.
Daniels averaged over 46 yards per punt. In many cases, this flipped the field and forced the Tigers into long drives that ate up time they could not afford to lose.
7. Carry the fight to Missouri and keep it there for sixty minutes.
For Josh Dobbs and the offense, this was certainly true. For the defense, not so much.
As noted last week, In the end, Tennessee did what it had to in order to win the game.
The final score. That MUST be the Vols' objective. How they get there does not matter.
Win.
Survive.
Move on.
Brick by Brick, Baby!
MAXOMG
Suggested Reading:
Bruce Catton, A Stillness at Appomattox
Shelby Foote, The Civil War, A Narrative: Red River to Appomattox
Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones, How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War
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