Volunteer cornerback Jason Allen answered questions from the media Tuesday regarding the season-ending hip injury he suffered in the Georgia game and the season-ending leg injury suffered by teammate Gerald Riggs last week against Alabama:

I talked to Gerald yesterday and I just told him to keep your head up, take it one day at a time and get better. . . . He’s gotta bounce back, that’s the biggest thing, staying positive and bouncing back.

On whether it’s hard to be positive immediately following a serious injury:

Well the first day is probably the toughest day. For me it was. But after a day, just stay positive, surround myself with positive people and throw all the negative people out the window. I don’t have time to deal with negative people. If you don’t have anything positive to say to encourage me, I really don’t wanna hear it. So I try to encourage Gerald and encourage people that go through things. I talked to D.J. [Shockley] and just wanted to encourage him after he had his injury because he called and the guys down in Georgia called and encouraged me. I mean it’s all about staying positive and keeping the right attitude.

On what people have been saying to encourage him:

Just keep your head up. Bounce back, that’s been the biggest I think, bounce back, and God’s will, I’ll be back stronger and better than ever. Just take it one day at a time. They told me I’m a great player, just keep your head up. Everywhere I go, even when I went to Alabama, this weekend, the Alabama fans came up to me and wished me a speedy recovery, and get well, so I really appreciate that.

When asked if Allen ever asked himself why he got injured, Allen said:

No, I don’t ask why because I don’t ask why things happen when I make a big play and why did this happen, so there’s no need asking why when something like this happens. God has a plan for me and it’s going to work out perfect. At the end, he’s going to get the glory and so it’s all going to be good.

Gerald Riggs is finished as a Volunteer. UTSports.com is reporting that the “lower leg and ankle injuries” Riggs suffered during the 4th quarter of Tennessee’s loss to Alabama Saturday are serious enough that Riggs will “definitely” miss the remainder of the season.

“I’m going to allow the UT Sports Medicine staff and team of orthopedic surgeons to continue directing my care,” Riggs said. “I think that gives me the best opportunity to return successfully from this injury.”

It’s not yet clear just how severe this injury is and whether it is career-threatening. Ditto the Thoughts and Prayers for Jason Allen post, this time for Gerald.

Well, as much as I’d like to lay all of the blame of Tennessee’s loss to Alabama on Corey Anderson, whose complaint about lack of playing time was due to a poor attitude in practice, and who fumbled away a sure 3-point lead for the Vols inside the five-yard line, I think it was more of a good play by the Tide’s Roman Harper than it was a bad play by Anderson.

A very tough loss.

Here’s a couple of early takes on the game from around the web:

• Game Recap from ESPN.com
• CollegeFootballNews.com mentions something I didn’t notice. Was Bama guilty of offensive pass interference on the big pass on its last drive? Going back to look at it now. Hmm. I see what they’re talking about, but it doesn’t look like much to me. The receiver put both hands on the defender’s shoulder pads, but it doesn’t look like a push to me. Would Alabama had made this play if Jason Allen was covering?
• Voluminous explains the loss without saying a word.
• Big Orange Michael is upset at the Volunteer offense . . . and CBS.
• Scout.com’s Quarterly Report.

College Football News’ John Harris is bucking CFN’s official pick (Tennessee 16, Alabama 13) and making his own.

According to Harris, the key matchups in tomorrow’s game between the Volunteers and the Crimson Tide are:

• the ability of Tennessee’s defensive line to beat Alabama’s offensive line and the Bama run attack
• the Alabama wide receiver corps (which has lost Tyrone Prothro, its best receiver) against the Tennessee secondary (which has lost Jason Allen, its best cover corner and tackler)
• the Vol offensive line, which has been struggling, against the Tide front seven, which has been exceptional.

Harris’ conclusion?

After the close call at Ole Miss last week, the Tide returns this week to Tuscaloosa, where they played an almost flawless game against Florida. They’ll need to continue to harness the emotion and passion of the Tide faithful to knock off a desperate Tennessee team. Similar to the way that Michigan fought back against undefeated Penn State, expect Tennessee to take Bama’s best shot and hang around for four quarters. Brodie Croyle will be the difference as he’ll continue to find open receivers and move the ball as they have this season. He’ll need a big play from one of his receivers, and expect him to get one that wins the game for the Tide. Alabama – 21 vs. Tennessee – 20

Tennessee Volunteer cornerback and captain Jason Allen on his hip injury:

“It was painful, but right now I’m just taking it one day at a time,” Allen said. “It’s nothing major. People want to compare it to the Bo Jackson injury, but his came all the way out of place and mine wasn’t that serious.

* * * *

“It’s just an injury that happened,” Allen said. “It’s not going to hold me down and I’ll be back stronger than ever.”

* * * *

“I’m staying positive and I thank all the fans and the student body for their support. I really appreciate it.”

* * * *

“I was really blessed to represent the T on the helmet,” Allen said. “I appreciate everyone who has been there for me throughout my years there … I appreciate everyone and always will be a Volunteer.”

* * * *

“Knowing I can’t practice, can’t run through the ‘T’ and can’t be there with my teammates,” he said, “that’s probably the hardest thing right now. I’ll get back where I need to be and prepare myself for the NFL.”

* * * *

“I appreciate all the E-mails and cards from the fans,” he said. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate them.”

Excellent news.

You can email Jason at jallen8@utk.edu.

---

Earlier Posts on Jason Allen’s Injury

• Thoughts and Prayers for Jason Allen
• Optimistic News Regarding Jason Allen’s Injury
• Update on Jason Allen’s Injury

Update to the Thoughts and Prayers for Jason Allen post.

According to a GoVolsXtra source (subscription required), Allen’s injury is “similar to the hip injury suffered by former UT safety Deon Grant.” The article also said, however, that Allen’s hip is merely dislocated and not fractured, which is contrary to what I read and repeated here. In any event, it’s good news that the injury will not end Allen’s football career.

Allen has played his last game as a Volunteer, but he is consulting with nationally-recognized hip specialists in an effort to expedite his recovery so that he can be ready by the time NFL teams begin evaluations for the April, 2006 draft. The biggest concern at this stage is making sure that his hip joint is getting proper circulation.

Good news for Jason.

Another update to the Thoughts and Prayers for Tennessee Volunteer Jason Allen post.

GoVolsXtra (subscription required) is reporting that they have learned from a source that “Allen suffered a dislocated hip and will be on crutches up to six weeks, but that surgery will not be required.”

If true, the fact that Allen’s injury won’t require surgery makes it less serious than Bo Jackson’s hip injury. Bo Jackson’s football career ended after his hip-replacement surgery in 1991. He was able to resume a career in baseball, but he was never the same.

Allen’s hip injury is also believed to be less serious than that of former Volunteer Deon Grant’s, who missed his entire first year in the NFL after fracturing his hip during training camp. He came back the year after that and has started 69 consecutive games for the Carolina Panthers.

Of course, both Bo Jackson and Deon Grant had already signed NFL contracts when they suffered their respective injuries. Allen will need to be even better than he was before in order to overcome the cloud the injury places on his draft stock, so continue to pray that he recovers quickly as well as completely.

NOTE: Scroll to the bottom for the latest updates and Jason’s email address so you can send him some good cheer.

---

If you’re wondering what cornerback Jason Allen means to the Tennessee Volunteer Football team, well, just have a look at this picture, taken just after Allen failed to get up after making a tackle in Saturday’s game against Georgia:

When he still didn’t get up after about ten minutes, the entire team gathered in prayer:

I was sitting in the same seats last year when, again just before halftime, Erik Ainge suffered a season-ending injury to his shoulder.

That was bad.

This was worse.

We see injuries all the time. Some of them even cut short a promising college football career.

But Jason Allen last year decided to postpone a promising and lucrative NFL career to come back and play for the Vols. He didn’t intend to forego it.

Everything I’ve heard about Jason Allen is that he’s a solid, Christian young man with his priorities straight. A fierce competitor when the ball is snapped, he is the epitome of good sportsmanship, patting opponents on the backside after knocking the snot out of them. He is admired as much by those opponents as he is by his teammates.

Allen could have left school early and earned millions playing in the NFL this year, but instead, he chose to return to lead the Vols’ championship run. This season, he basically played two positions at once. He somehow racked up safety-like tackle statistics while also shutting down every opponent’s best receiver from his cornerback position. He’s led by example and vocally inspired the Vols’ secondary to show everyone that they are not the team’s greatest weakness, but one of the team’s strengths.

And there he was, lying on the turf. Surrounded by trainers. Both teams kneeling in prayer before a shocked-into-silence crowd of 108,000 fans and admirers. You could almost see the question on his face as he surveyed the crowd through watering eyes: Is this goodbye?

There’s not much information available yet about the extent of Allen’s injury. The Volunteer Nation and football fans everywhere are praying that it’s not a serious as the bent backwards, sideways twisted collision made it appear.

Tennessee fans enjoyed watching Jason Allen play four and a half games in a Volunteer uniform this season. If it’s his last for the Vols, quite frankly, that’s okay.

Just pray that being a Vol hasn’t cost him a career.

---

I’ve searched but haven’t found a very good place to leave comments for Jason. If you have any encouraging words, please post them by clicking on the “comments” link below. If you know of a better place, let me know, and I’ll direct readers there. Any gripes about the game in the comments for this post will be deleted — this is not the place. This is about Jason Allen. The person.

UPDATE: Jason’s going to be okay. Don’t leave comments here anymore — you can email him directly at jallen8@utk.edu.

---

Jason Allen Links

• Video Profile from GoVolsXtra.com (subscription required)

Okay, so the Tennessee Vols lost to Georgia for the fifth time in six games, but Freaktoe and I had a good time at Neyland Stadium on Saturday.

Our comp tickets — thanks, Jimmie Miller, Esq., and Hunter, Smith & Davis! — were high up in the lower section at the south end zone, Section K, Row 63 to be exact. They gave us a great view of the Pride of the Southland’s Power T formation:

as well as the team running through the T:

I took several other pictures, but we were a bit too high to get anything very good. Freaktoe had two Cokes, peanuts, popcorn, and a few M&Ms, and we were only one row from the top and about 20 feet from a bathroom, so we only had to tick off two people instead of ten for Freaktoe’s five bathroom breaks.

Here’s a free tip to fathers taking young daughters to football games: less Coke, more peanuts.

The loss — and especially the as-yet-unknown-extent of beloved Jason Allen’s hip injury — put a damper on things, but we had a pretty good time. Freaktoe was actually quite into it when Jonathan Wade intercepted D.J. Shockley’s pass and ran it back for what should have been ruled a touchdown. (Rick Clausen snuck it in on the next play, and we got our seven, anyway.)

It’s a bit strange to hear Freaktoe telling people that we just had terrible field position all day. There’s hope for her yet.

In the A-Child-Can-Dream-Can’t-She file: About halfway through the 4th quarter, Freaktoe asked, “Wouldn’t it be great if we actually made a touchdown?”

Yeah, that would be nice.

It’s not exactly a closely-guarded secret that the Tennessee Volunteers are acutely affected by others’ impressions of them. As a general rule, great expectations lead to great disappointments (either an outright loss or an unimpressive win) and double-digit spreads motivate them to prove everyone wrong.

This phenomenon occurs both collectively and on an individual level. If you haven’t noticed it yet, watch it for awhile, and it will become clear.

As one corporate example, the 1997 team was led by Peyton Manning and staffed with NFL talent, but they underachieved (a bit). The next year, there were essentially no expectations for the entire season. After all, Peyton was gone, and Tee Martin had never started a game. When Jamal Lewis was hurt early in the season, all hopes went down the drain. But by the end of the season, the team was undefeated and ranked number 1 in the country. Even then, though, their opponent — a one-loss Florida State Seminole team — was favored to win the BCS National Championship game. Heck, after they won, the commentators chalked the Vol win up to the fact that FSU had to play with a third-string quarterback.

The next year, with essentially the same team returning (plus Jamal Lewis), the expectations were again sky high, and the team underachieved yet again.

On the individual level, watch just about any player the week following a week during which they garner significant attention. It’s most often a bust.

There are exceptions to the Spotlight Effect — see, e.g., Jason Allen and Jessee Mahelona. The exceptions are generally found in very mature and experienced players, those that not only are solid character guys, but have probably already fallen victim to the Spotlight Effect a time or two and vowed to never let it happen again.

Still the general rule holds true. When the Spotlight shines, the team, unit, or player often wilts, and when the Spotlight is directed away from the team, the unit, or the player, they excel in the peripheral glow in an attempt to get back into the Spotlight.

So, under the Spotlight Effect, who’s due for good and bad performances this week against the dreaded Georgia Bulldogs?

Expect Good Games from:

• The Wide Receiver Corps. The “this is one of the most talented group of receivers in the country” meme is finally dying off. The receivers have been praised to high heaven since the final whistle last season, and it was only this week that a new meme began to propagate. Former Vol and current lawyer and sports agent Tim Irwin apparently called them out on a local t.v. or radio show earlier this week saying that they “looked like Tarzan and played like Jane.” John Pennington has been saying the same thing for a few weeks now, and Knoxville sports radio hosts and callers have jumped on the band wagon this week. So, the Spotlight is off the group and they finally have something to prove. Expect that they will.
• Rick Clausen.This poor guy is still not getting getting his due. UT fans seem to appreciate him — in a sort of backhanded way. “Oh, he’s a great leader and decision-maker. Too bad he can’t do anything but dink it around.” So everyone, including the coaches, are telling Rick that he can’t throw the long ball. You’d think they’d have learned not to tell Rick he can’t do something. Maybe he can’t throw it 80 yards, but I don’t know that he can’t throw it 40 or 50, and really, that’s plenty. And so what if he can’t? Isn’t he the same style of quarterback as David Greene, who became the winningest quarterback in SEC history? Check that, in NCAA history. I think that Rick is too mature and experienced to suffer the negative effects of having the Spotlight shine on him, but I think he’s still motivated by people telling him he can’t do it.

Expect a Poor Game from:

• The Secondary. In stark contrast to the high expectations of the wide receiver corps, everyone has said from day one that the Vols’ biggest weakness was its secondary (apart from Jason Allen). But the thing is, they’ve actually played quite well. For two games in a row now, the secondary has made big plays, first with Jonathan Heffney’s interception-for-an-almost-touchdown against LSU and second with Jonathan Wade’s interception-for-a-touchdown last week against Ole Miss, and the group has rightly received its due this week from local media and fans. Unfortunately, Spotlight Theory suggests that will be the kiss of death this week or next. Let’s hope, though, that this group is mature and experienced enough to thwart the theory. Allen can, and perhaps Wade has learned his lesson (subscription required):
  

  “Last year, there were times when I might have had a good game and it went to my head,” Wade said. “Then, the next game was just horrendous.

  “I know now that one game means nothing if the rest of them are bad. I’m just trying to stay humble and stay focused.”

Let’s hope.