Tennessee Saves Its Best for Last, 23-22 : Sugar: Volunteers trail all game long until they score with 31 seconds to play to culminate a last-ditch, 79-yard drive and beat Virginia.

In the last minute of the last bowl game, the Tennessee Volunteers took their first lead in the Sugar Bowl, proving that even if they can’t count, they have a pretty good sense of timing.

Rocked by a penalty for having 12 players on the field during a fourth-quarter drive that ended in a field goal by Virginia, the Volunteers promptly drove 79 yards in the last 2 minutes 24 seconds, scoring the go-ahead touchdown with 31 seconds left and walking off the floor of the Superdome with a 23-22 Sugar Bowl triumph Tuesday night before 75,132.

In a game of 3 hours 25 minutes, the last drive took only two minutes. Beat the clock? “We had every tick counted,” Tennessee Coach Johnny Majors said.

It was wildly entertaining, if nothing else, and after watching his team’s 20-point fourth quarter, Majors thought it looked all right to him.

“It was an amazing ballgame,” Majors said. “I don’t think I’ve seen a better one.”

The Southeastern Conference champion Volunteers (9-2-2) trailed, 16-0, at halftime, but rolled up 339 yards of total offense the rest of the way, led by quarterback Andy Kelly and tailback Tony Thompson.

Kelly, chosen the most game’s most valuable player, completed 24 of 35 passes for 273 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. Thompson rushed 25 times for 151 yards and a touchdown.

Kelly took the Volunteers on their winning drive, immediately after Jake McInerney’s 44-yard field goal, his third of the game, produced a 22-17 lead for the Cavaliers. A 15-yard penalty on Tennessee for too many players on the field helped put McInerney in position.

Kelly swiftly moved the Vols downfield. With 54 seconds left, Tennessee faced a fourth and one at the Virginia 23, but fullback Greg Amsler pushed his way up the middle for six yards to the 17. Kelly passed for 13 yards to wingback Alvin Harper and a first and goal to go at the four.

Two running plays moved the ball to the one, from which Thompson launched himself across the goal line.

It was hardly a satisfying end to what began as a dream season for Virginia, which started 7-0 but finished 8-4. If the Sugar Bowl meant anything to the Cavaliers, it was seen as their chance to prove they belonged in the first place.

Virginia Coach George Welsh wasn’t about to judge the merits of such an argument.

“I don’t know how much we needed to prove tonight, but we showed that we can play at this level,” he said.

The Cavaliers lost by one point and probably by one thumb, the one on quarterback Shawn Moore’s right hand. Moore, who had surgery on his thumb six weeks ago after injuring it in a loss to Maryland, failed to complete any of his nine second-half passes.

Moore ended up completing only nine of 22 passes for 62 yards. His inability to put any touch on the ball rendered Virginia’s biggest offensive threat, 6-foot-5 receiver Herman Moore, all but useless.

Herman Moore caught two passes, none after the second quarter.

“By the second half, Shawn didn’t seem like he was getting anything on it,” Welsh said.

“I could feel the weakness in my thumb,” Shawn Moore said. “I don’t want to blame it on that. There were times when I could have made some throws, but I didn’t get them in the rightspot.”

Thompson was getting untracked at the same time Moore was struggling. Held to 35 yards in the first half, Thompson ran for 80 yards of a 94-yard drive, including a seven-yard touchdown run that narrowed Virginia’s lead to 16-10 early in the fourth quarter.

McInerney’s 43-yard field goal gave Virginia a 19-10 lead, but Kelly drove the Volunteers 80 yards for a touchdown--which came on a 15-yard pass to Carl Pickens--to get Tennessee within 19-17.

Virginia’s offense managed nothing but two field goals in the second half and finished with 349 yards total offense, 210 yards of it in the first half. By contrast, Tennessee ended with 464 yards, but didn’t seem to be going much of anywhere early.

By halftime, the Volunteers trailed, 16-0, and seemed to have Virginia right where they wanted it: In the locker room. Maybe not, though. After all, this Virginia team said goodby to its No. 1-ranking and wound up losing to Georgia Tech, 41-38, after leading, 28-14, at the half. Virginia also led Maryland by 14 points and lost, 35-30.

The Cavaliers’ first half seemed pretty convincing. Virginia kept the ball for nearly 22 minutes and scored touchdowns on drives of 61 and 80 yards, the first taking 5:41 and the second 6:59.

Tennessee was consistent, if nothing else. Here’s the way the Volunteers’ five first-half drives finished: fumble, punt, interception, interception, missed field goal. Virginia intercepted Kelly passes at the Cavaliers’ one-yard line and in the end zone.

Apparently, there were some hurt feelings. “I was pretty darned upset,” Majors said.

The Cavaliers were up, 6-0, after Gary Steele’s 10-yard touchdown run ended the first drive of the game and a short time later got the ball back at the Tennessee 28 when Joey Chapman’s punt traveled only 13 yards. McInerney’s 22-yard field goal with 35 seconds left in the first quarter made it 9-0.

When Tyrone Lewis stole Kelly’s pass from Pickens in the end zone, Virginia embarked on its second time-consuming touchdown drive and a 16-0 lead.

Terry Kirby got this touchdown, taking a pitch across the goal from a yard out, but that wasn’t the hardest part. In the end zone, teammate Nikki Fisher alternated playful slaps to both sides of Kirby’s helmet as Kirby turned his head one way and then the other.

But in the end, after Thompson’s go-ahead touchdown, there were Tennessee players trading head butts on the field, knocking each other off their feet. It must have hurt so good.