Sportswriter and author Clay Travis lives, breathes, and bleeds Tennessee orange and white. When Travis decided to spend the 2008 season up close and personal with UT football, he and every other college football aficionado thought he was in for a rollicking ride with one of the leading contenders for the national title. But as the weeks passed by, it became clear that 2008 was going to be a season on the brink for the Volunteers. By December, the team had suffered its worst season in its 110-year history and Head Coach Phil Fulmer, the most beloved and recognized man in Tennessee, had been fired, ending his 16-year tenure.

From the locker room and the team bus to the sidelines and the hallways of the team’s hotels, Travis had unlimited and unprecedented access to the UT coaches, players, and personnel, enabling him to recount in vivid detail how a season of promise tragically ended an era of college football. An insightful journalist and impassioned fan, Travis has created a fascinating and loving chronicle of a state, a culture, a people, and the sensational collapse of a once mighty juggernaut.