Battle at Bristol
The Battle at Bristol was an American college football game played at Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee on Saturday, September 10, 2016, between the University of Tennessee [Tennessee Tennessee Volunteers football|Volunteers football|Volunteers] and the Virginia Tech [Virginia Tech Virginia Tech Hokies football|Hokies football|Hokies]. It holds the record for NCAA football's largest single-game attendance at 156,990. Sponsored by truck stop chain Pilot Flying J, the game was known as the Pilot Flying J Battle at Bristol.
History
The first time football was ever played at Bristol Motor Speedway was an NFL exhibition game, held on September 2, 1961, between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Washington Redskins. The seating capacity for the speedway in 1961 was 18,000 people. Attendance for the game totaled 8,500 people.The idea of a marquee college football game at Bristol Motor Speedway was originally proposed in 1997. After years of planning and scheduling, a contract was eventually finalized in 2013 for a 2016 game. The event was originally named the Battle at Bristol, between Tennessee and Virginia Tech. From the beginning, a primary goal and reason for holding the game at Bristol Motor Speedway was to break the all-time college football attendance record.
A primary reason for Virginia Tech and Tennessee being selected for the game is that the speedway is approximately equidistant between the two schools. Also, the city of Bristol is separated by the Virginia/Tennessee state line along the center of their main street, State Street. The game was the ninth meeting between the teams and their first regular season game since 1937. The most recent meetings have been in bowl games: the 1994 Gator Bowl and the 2009 Chick-fil-A Bowl.
Before kickoff, head coaches Butch Jones of Tennessee and Justin Fuente of Virginia Tech, along with Battle at Bristol officials, were presented with a plaque from Guinness World Records, stating that the Battle at Bristol had the largest audience to ever attend an American football game.
Game summary
The game took place at 8:00 p.m. ET on September 10, 2016, in week two of the 2016 college football season. It was featured as the Saturday Night Football prime-time game on ABC and was chosen to host College GameDay that week. To tie in with the venue, former NASCAR on ESPN reporters Dr. Jerry Punch and Marty Smith joined Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit, and Samantha Ponder during the broadcast.Pre-game
The coin toss ceremony featured alumni representatives from each school: Peyton Manning from Tennessee and Bruce Smith from Virginia Tech.1st quarter
Tennessee won the opening coin toss but deferred to start the second half. Virginia Tech began the game from their 11-yard line and had a 13-play, 59-yard drive before stalling at the Volunteers' 30-yard line to give kicker Joey Slye a 47-yard field goal attempt which missed wide right. However, the Hokies' Ken Ekanem sacked Tennessee's quarterback Joshua Dobbs for a loss to end their opening drive. In the ensuing drive, Virginia Tech took eight plays to score first on a seven-yard pass from Jerod Evans to Sam Rogers. Tennessee was again forced to punt after a 3-and-out. Virginia Tech needed just two plays to score its second touchdown on Travon McMillian's 69-yard touchdown run. The teams swapped short drives to end the quarter. Virginia Tech led 14–0.During the break between quarters, former Virginia Tech Head Coach, Frank Beamer was honored at mid-field with an ovation from the crowd for his contributions to college football in his 29 years as the Hokies' head coach and for his instrumental role in creating the Battle at Bristol.