Tedford admits now that putting Longshore in that situation was almost unfair, but at the time, he was still the best option.
"That was a difficult first opportunity with the new (spread) offense, with the shotgun, with the crowd like that," the coach said. "It was about as difficult a task as you could have, plus the speed of Tennessee — everything was moving pretty fast. It was definitely a rough one to start with."
But instead of the experience destroying his morale, it served to inspire both him and his teammates.
"Looking back on it, I kind of appreciate that game more than any other game we had last year," Longshore said. "I felt like that game set our tone in practice for the rest of the season, set our mentality going into the games. It's unfortunate what happened — you obviously don't want to go out there and embarrass yourself the first weekend of the season — but I felt like it was something we needed to help our focus."