{"id":16149,"date":"2023-09-09T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-09T16:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/?p=16149"},"modified":"2023-09-09T11:30:00","modified_gmt":"2023-09-09T16:30:00","slug":"austin-peay-coach-scotty-walden-had-a-holy-crap-moment-in-his-first-game-at-neyland-stadium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/austin-peay-coach-scotty-walden-had-a-holy-crap-moment-in-his-first-game-at-neyland-stadium\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin Peay coach Scotty Walden had a \u2018holy crap\u2019 moment in his first game at Neyland Stadium"},"content":{"rendered":"

Austin Peay head coach Scotty Walden<\/a><\/strong> was coaching wide receivers at Southern Miss in 2017. The Golden Eagles had a November date against Tennessee at Neyland Stadium. It was Walden\u2019s first game coaching against an SEC opponent and one of his fellow coaches offered up some advice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll never forget,\u201d Walden said this week during an appearance on WNML 99.1-FM in Knoxville<\/a>, \u201cour defensive coordinator at the time was like, hey, just pregame, go out there and take a deep breath and look around for about 30 seconds and just don\u2019t coach yet. Just take it all in.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Walden was confused at first. But when he got on the field, it clicked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI ran out of that tunnel,\u201d he said, \u201cthose gates opened up and I was like, oh, holy crap. I was like, man, what a great atmosphere this is. I just sat there and soaked it in and it just put things in perspective. Like, man, what a blessing to get to coach this game and get opportunities like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Go attack it and cut it loose. And have fun and go compete.\u2019<\/h2>\n

Southern Miss lost 24-10 on that Saturday night in 2017. Now Walden gets another opportunity, this time as a head coach, with Austin Peay (0-1) playing at No. 9 Tennessee (1-0) on Saturday (5 p.m. Eastern Time, ESPN+\/SEC Network+<\/a>). \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely want to go approach this game \u2014 and I think our players already are \u2014 with a heart of gratitude,\u201d Walden said this week, \u201cand then go attack it and cut it loose. And have fun and go compete.\u201d<\/p>\n

He knows the challenge in front of his team is just as big as Tennessee\u2019s 101,915-seat, 102-year-old stadium.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No. 9 Tennessee vs. Austin Peay, Saturday, 5 p.m. ET, ESPN+<\/h2>\n

The Vols are known for their offense \u2014 they led all of college football scoring at 46.1 points per game last season \u2014 but Walden said there\u2019s more that pops off the tape than Josh Heupel\u2019s uptempo scheme.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll tell you what, when you look holistically as a team and you watch them on special teams, you watch them on defense and everything, they play extremely hard,\u201d Walden said. \u201cAnd that was one thing that stuck out to me studying them. Breaking it down on defense was not just the schematics, but those kids play really hard, run to the football.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s been really impressive to see what Coach Heupel and his staff have done. Especially given the time that they took over Tennessee and everything going on, to get it to where it is now. It was really impressive to watch and a ton of respect for, for Coach Heupel and staff in that program.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post Austin Peay coach Scotty Walden had a \u2018holy crap\u2019 moment in his first game at Neyland Stadium<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Austin Peay head coach Scotty Walden was coaching wide receivers at Southern Miss in 2017….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}