As a journalist, or a fan, I feel I should not insult my highly intelligent readers by explaining to them what the University of Tennessee is like on gameday.

But as I press on through the season following the Vols, I must continue to chronicle my experiences, no matter how boring. And come to think of it, boring is quite a segway to this week's edition of 'On the Road with the Vols'.

That being said, the home opener versus the University of Alabama at Birmingham (from Conference USA) was less than exciting, or should I say, less than at all entertaining.

The gameday experience was its usual organized chaos with a billion Vol fans packed onto our not-quite-big-enough campus.

The usual ratio of fans to parking spaces, 25-1, was present, along with the now all too noticeable ratio of college students to cornhole boards, now approaching 2-1.  This game 'is all the rage' as the kids say these days.

Volunteer football, on the other hand, not so much the rage anymore, at least among UT students.

Combine losing to Florida and Alabama last year by a combined 100-37, having to pay for students' tickets for the first time even, mix in the embarrassment at UCLA, top with 16 years of Phil Fulmer, bake at approximately 375 degrees for 3 hours and you have some pretty bitter students who are already looking forward to basketball season.

Come to think of it, the only mildly excited cheers from the students came when a basketball preview was shown during a TV timeout on the jumbotron. This could be a long year. 

The announced attendance was just over 98,000 but if you ask me it looked more like 80 to 85,000 were there, with gaping empty holes in the student section. Which most probably think is a giant slap in the face to the university for making us (students) pay for tickets, but in reality, they couldn't care less.

Either we buy them, or they'll sell them to more than willing adults (people in the 'real world', which must mean our world is fake) who would wait in line to pay three times as much as we do to buy them. I guess the ball is in our court.

Even with the poor showing of students, I still managed to sit near the second-guessers. You know who I'm talking about. Good or bad, they question the call, offense or defense. Wonderful. Phillip Fulmer would like to personally thank you for your input, too bad he can't hire roughly 25,000 offensive and defensive coordinators.

At any rate, the sultry Saturday afternoon sun ratted out the weak during the second half. Not too much second-guessing was going on then. I guess hind sight is only 20-20 under comfortable weather conditions.

The performance by the Vols was streaky, at best. Gerald Jones looked good at times. Jonathan Crompton looked awful at times. The defense was decent throughout and the offense found ways to take advantage of playing the, statistically speaking, worst defense in the nation.

A poorly executed two-minute drill gave the fans excuse to boo the team as they left the field for halftime. It should be expected, though, when you lead the team with the worst defensive unit 14-0 after two quarters.

The running game found its rhythm in the second half, not that anyone was there to see it, and it looks like it may be our only hope against Tim Tebow's Florida Gators.

They say Superman wears Tim Tebow pajamas. I guess we'll find out Saturday.