Fox Sports: Florida-Tennessee, an oral history of the controversial game in 2000

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Smith: As the game ended, frustration boiled over for UT fans in the stands. I heard glass break and looked over to where the noise had come from. Some outraged Vol fan had thrown a glass liquor bottle at the Florida section to our left. The bottle hit a metal divider and shattered, peppering several unfortunate Florida fans with shards of broken glass. As I made the descent into the concourse, I thought to myself how messed up that was. It's just a game right? No reason to randomly assault people you don't know and who you'll never see again. As I made my way down the exit ramp on the east side of Neyland Stadium, I looked up and saw a group of young Florida fans taunting us as we dejectedly filed out of the stadium. Pointing at us! Laughing at us! Telling us to get out of our own stadium! Suddenly the perspective I had only a moment ago vanished and I found myself filled with unspeakable rage and wishing I had a bottle of my own or some other blunt object to hurl at these scoundrels. Yep...that's what this rivalry does to people.

Waxler: I was outside Neyland when it ended, so I got caught in the wave of livid fans coming out. I remember everyone yelling profanity. I interviewed a Vol fan live on the air about the Gaffney play. He held it together, but then circled back around and caught me off guard yelling, "These refs f@#*@!& suck!" It was the first and only time in my career someone did that to me. Thankfully it was before the age of DVR's and YouTube.

Ford: (After the game) there were two or three guys there in the tunnel, which never happens. It's never happened before up there or since. They were a little irritable at that point at the van and they were hollering and screaming. We had security get them back. We had a riotous trip out of the stadium at the beginning but that was it. It would be scary if you didn't have anyone there but anyone in it for 40 years like me had one or two incidents like that where you wish you had help. Once at a high school game we had to have a police car pick us up at midfield. But the SEC has always had good security, very few incidents where people got close in threatening you or had any little twinge of danger. But I do remember those guys screaming at us.

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