The Tennessean from Nashville, Tennessee • Page 29

use iiuwi- 1 TODAY'S GAMES Bears shuffle off to Buffalo Page 2C POR1 Baseball 4C Scoreboard 13C Outdoors 14C SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1991 1 Bombs away! UT dlowes AiibuirE John Bibb Gators bounce back Florida 29, Miss. State 7 Georgia 27, Cal Fullerton 13 Mississippi 24, Arkansas 17 Kentucky 24, Kent 6 Vandy: 6C. UT: 8C. SEC: 10C. By DAVID CLIMER Sports Wnttr KNOXVILLE For longtime football adversaries Tennessee and Auburn, breaking up Is hard to do.

And at the same time, breaking a tie is sweet revenge. Using last year's 26-26 deadlock as added incentive, fifth-ranked Tennessee used two Andy Kelly-to-Carl Pickens bombs and a nerve-testing field goal by freshman John Becksvoort to dislodge some painful memories In a 30-21 conquest of No. 13 Auburn last night. "We Just kept saying, 'We ain't gonna let It happen said Vol linebacker Darryl Hardy, mindful of last year's collapse which allowed Auburn to score 17 unanswered points. "We've had to live with what hap- Florida on Oct 12.

Meanwhile, Auburn slipped to 3-1 overall and 1-1 In the SEC Also, the Tigers are now dogged by a little history lesson: The loser of the UT-Auburn game has never won an outright SEC title. The harsh reality of this left Auburn Coach Pat Dye with a short fuse after a long night during which his Tigers stumbled In front of a national cable television audience and the largest crowd ever to witness a football game in the South 97.731. "You saw the game. It was a good, old-fashioned Dye said. "You can write all you want about the mystique of Neyland Stadium or whatever, but I saw a bunch of men In orange who whipped us in every way, shape, 10-7 halftimelead.

A 21-yard return of an Interception for a touchdown by Auburn freshman Fred Smith, cutting UTs lead to 20-14 with 14:19 left Auburn's penalty-aided 15-play, 65-yard touchdown drive which ended with White's five-yard bootleg, again pulling the Tigers within six points at the 7:48 mark. And, finally, Becksvoort's straight-arrow 26-yarder, his third field goal of the night Earlier, Becksvoort kicked field goals of 44 and 34 yards In a successful college debut UT Coach Johnny Majors said "Our team Is really growing with our schedule. This is an Interesting team." Interesting. And undefeated. form or fashion." The Vols' victory came In the last regular-season meeting between the two old rivals until 1994.

The Vols and Tigers go their separate ways due to the SECs expansion. But until they meet again, last night's game provides these memories for fans of both teams: Two Kelly-to-Plckens bombs In the second half, covering 87 and 67 yards, both of which helped take the teeth out of Tiger rallies. A 355-yard passing performance by Kelly. A timely screen pass from Stan White to Joe Frazler which turned into a 78-yard touchdown to break a second period scoreless tie. A one-handed grab and short scamper by Tavlo Henson for UTs pened last year too long.

Now we can forget about It" UT can now relish a 4-0 start as the Vols enter a welcome off-week. Tennessee, now 2-0 in the Southeastern Conference, plays at Alabama Alabama's Stacy back at full tilt By the middle of the third quarter, Alabama's Slran Stacy had stowed his football helmet and donned a baseball cap. The chapeaux change told the story of the Crimson Tide's pulverizing attack that engulfed Vander-bllt's Commodores last night in their Southeastern Conference home opener at Dudley Field. Upon retirement from the action, Stacy, the gifted senior tailback who missed last year's gridiron proceedings because of a knee Injury, had punctured the Vanderbilt defense for 1 80 yards in 1 6 rushes. Stacy's performance went a long way toward helping silence the rap on the Crimson Tide offense which had been less than spectacular In Its two previous conference starts against Florida and Georgia.

For the night, Alabama piled up 538 total yards net offense. The Crimson Tide's game plan was clear. Let Stacy line up six or seven yards deep in the Alabama backfield and give him a chance to pick a hole. The Crimson Tide forwards bumped Vandy's defenders in one direction and Stacy ran the other. In this counter-attack style, Sircy was the easy winner in his brief confrontations with off-balanace Vanderbilt defensive pursuers.

Meanwhile, from the git-go, the Crimson Tlders" defensive thinking seemed clear. They were anxious to encourage Vanderbilt to try and throw the ball. It was a conventional coaching decision for in the Commodores' previous starts against Syracuse, SMU and LSU, Vandy's passing effort had shown little potential. The Tide defenders were stacked two deep near the line of scrimmage. They offered Vanderbilt virtually no seams for running lanes, and were quick and strong enough to put heat on Commodore quarterback Jeff Brothers without bothering to blitz.

This combined to offer Alabama strong coverage In the secondary when Vanderbilt did have an opportunity to throw. It wasn't until late In the game, with the outcome no longer In doubt, that Vandy's passing effort showed effectively. Mike Healey, substituting for Brothers at quarterback, led a couple of fourth-quarter drives which produced both Vandy touchdowns. Despite considerable pressure, Healy managed to hit seven of his 1 1 passes for 1 22 yards. To make matters worse for the Commodores in the early going, Alabama got a hefty scoring boost from punt returner David Palmer.

The 5-9, 170-pound freshman stutter-stepped his way through a wad of Commodore coverage men to break away on a 56-yard punt return touchdown in the second quarter. Palmer's nifty sprint came shortly after Vandy had made it to the scoreboard on a 19-yard field goal by Jeff Owen, and pushed Alabama on top, 21-3. For the evening, Palmer chose to return four punts for a total of 95 yards. Vandy's work In the final quarter came against an assortment of Alabama reserves, and at the end of the game the Commodores showed a worksheet of 404 yards gained, 189 of them rushing and 215 of the yards through the air. Vandy's Coach Gerry DiNardo said Bama's offense didn't come as a surprise: "We planned for them to run the plays they ran, but they controlled the line of scrimmage." "It was a good game for us," offered Bama's Coach Gene Stallings.

"We had a chance to play a lot of players, and we had an outstanding performance by our offensive line." rolls past VU, 48-17 By LARRY WOODY Sports Wnttr Unlike last week, Vanderbilt last night didn't have to endure the agony of a last-second loss. Last night's agony started much earlier, as 22nd-ranked Alabama took the Commodores on an old-fashioned 48-17 trip to the Southeastern Conference woodshed. The Tide rolled up 589 yards total offense and had the game tucked away midway in the third quarter. "Well, we've got some work to do," said Vandy Coach Gerry DiNardo, whose team last week stirred hopes of improvement by playing LSU down to the wire before losing by two points on a fumble. "Obviously, when you get beat like this, you don't play really well." "It's hard to say which hurt worse this one or LSU," said wlngback Anthony Carter.

"They all hurt" Vanderbilt now 1-3 on the season and 0-2 In the SEC, tries to regroup Saturday at Duke. Alabama boosted Its record to 3-1. Last night's Bama barrage was led by senior running back Slran Stacey, who shreaded Vandy's defense for 180 yards rushing. "We set the tempo early on and moved the ball like we wanted to all night long," said Stacy. Tide Coach Gene Stallings, who has now beaten Vandy by a total of 107-38 in the last two games, took Stacey out with over 1 0 mlntues left in the third quarter.

A crowd of 40,736 as much Alabama Crimson White as Vandy Black Gold turned out for the game. Vandy fans began to clog the exits In the third quarter when their team fell behind 35-3. Alabama, which last year turned a flurry of Vanderbilt boo-boos into a 52-0 second-quarter lead, last night missed two field goals and still led 21-3 at halftime. The Commodores missed a chance to establish some early momentum after marching to the Bama eight on their second possession. Quarterback Jeff Brothers fumbled the snap and the Tide recovered, going the other way to score on a 27-yard pass from Danny Woodson to David Palmer.

After Vandy went three downs and out on Its next possession, Stacy broke a 59-yard run to set up a seven-yard TD dash by Kevin Turner. Jeff Owen put the Commodores on the scoreboard with a 19-yard field goal early In the second quarter. Vandy settled for the three-pointer after driving to the the Alabama two, where it faced fourth and goal. The visitors stretched their lead to 21-3 by halftime on a 56-yard Palmer punt return. The Crimson Tide made up for two third-quarter flubbed field goals by staging two long scoring drives in the third period as the rout continued.

Vanderbilt junior quarterback Mike Healey, making his first appearance of the season, came in to throw a 51-yard touchdown pass to Payne with less than five minutes to play. Healey also scored on a 15-yard run with three seconds left in the game. yr-i Mil; Bill Steber Staff Michael Rogers of Alabama celebrates after recovering a Crimson Tide territory during the Commodores' second fumble by Vanderbilt quarterback Jeff Brothers deep in possession of the game last night. No doubt about it: No. 1 Fla.

State romps 51-31 SHOWDOWN IN THE NL WEST Tennessean News Services ANN ARBOR, Mich. Don't bother debating who's No. 1 Top-ranked Florida State settled things for now yesterday by drilling No.3 Michigan 51-31. "I don't think there should be any doubt about who's No. 1," said Florida State cornerback Terrell Buckley, whose 40-yard Interception return for a touchdown on the second play set the tone for the afternoon.

"If there are still any doubters, they should go have their heads ex- backs," said Dinkins. Michigan didn't make a first down on its first three possessions of the second half and didn't score again until 4:58 remained. Meanwhile, FSU quarterback Casey Weldon was on his way to 268 yards passing and three touchdowns and tailback Amp Lee was chalking up 122 yards and two TDs. When the offense wasn't doing the job, the defense did: five turnovers, two TDs, and two clutch stands in the final quarter. Holder Brad Johnson's shovel pass to William Floyd on a fake field goal broke a 7-7 tie and gave FSU (4-0) the lead for good with 7:26 to play in the first quarter.

Michigan (2-1) kept close for a half as multi-threat Desmond Howard made two circus TD catches. But with the score 31-23, and Michigan on the FSU 3 in the final seconds of the first half, quarterback Elvis Grbac was intercepted by linebacker Howard Dinkins. "I think that probably broke their On 11C I Rout even surprised Seminoles. aminedbyashrink." In 1 12 years of football, Michigan never had given up so many points in its own stadium. No team had scored 51 points on Michigan since it visited Northwestern in 1958.

"If we wouldn't have made any mistakes, we'd have scored 70," said tackle Robert Stevenson. Yesterday'! results CI Braves 5, Astros 4 BGiants 4, Dodgers 1 Dodgers lead Braves by 1 game Today's games 0 Braves at Astros, 1:35 p.m., TBS. 13 Giants at Dodgers, 7 p.m., ESPN. Stories on 5C. AROUND THE DIAL RESULTS MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL, Page 4C Tennessee-Florida football on from three points flllOluUnlEf American League National League Philadelphia 6, N.Y.2 ft TUBE 1 (talk Oct.

12 will be on ESPN at 6:30 p.m. Pro football today: Bears-Bills, noon, Channel 49ers-Raiders, 3 p.m., Channel Dolphins-Jets, 3 p.m., Channel Detroit 5, Baltimore 4 Cleveland 5, New York 4 Minnesota 5, Toronto 0 Milwaukee 4, Boston 1 Texas 6, Oakland 3 (10) Cgicago 5, Seattle 2 California 4, K.C. 3 COLLEGE FOOTBALL Cumberland won its first football game in more than 40 years yesterday as it defeated visiting Clinch Valley (Va.) 31-13 in Lebanon. "It all feels good," said Coach Nick Coutras, who resurrected the Cumberland program last year. Cumberland is 1-2.

On 5C. Tennessee State's woes continue. The winless Big Blue lost its fifth in a row, 43-7 to Florida before more than 49,000 fans in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. On 7C. 4 St.

Louis 3, Chicago 2 Atlanta 5, Houston 4 San Francisco 4, L.A. 1 San Diego 4, Cincinnati 2 Montreal 3, Pittsburgh 2 GOLF Europe rallied down to tie the U.S. 8-8 heading into today's final 12 singles matches in the Ryder Cup. Payne Stewart and Fred Couples prevented a European sweep of yesterday afternoon's matches by tying Seve Ballest-eros and Jose Maria Ofczabal. On 7C.

WHAT'S UP TODAY Harry Gant goes for his record fifth consecutive win in NASCAR's Tyson Holly Farms 400 at North Wilkesboro, N.C. "I don't know if or when we can stop Harry," said rival driver Rusty Wallace. (ESPN, 11:30 a.m.) On 3C. 4. Ryder Cup golf, 11:30 a.m., Channel 4.

Baseball: Braves-Astros, 1:30 p.m., TBS; Giants-Dodgers, 7 p.m., ESPN. Listings, 13C. a Minnesota can sew up the al West with a victory against Toronto today. The Twins have clinched a tie. 4.

STEWART.