utdailybeacon
The countdown to kickoff had commenced, and Sergeant Phillip Geerts was growing anxious. Positioned atop Neyland Stadium, Geerts was tasked with directing the aircraft scheduled for the stadium flyover before Tennessee's football matchup against Auburn.
As a Joint Terminal Attack Controller-certified member of the flyover team, his duties included timing the flyover precisely and keeping the airspace above the stadium clear. Timing is critical in every flyover; the plane crew cannot hear the band, and the band cannot halt its performance to match the aircraft's speed. Everything hinges on the individual in Geerts' role, sometimes called the JTAC. Even a 10-second deviation can throw everything off.
JTACs like Geerts typically guide combat aircraft in coordinating airstrikes. Although his daily military routine differs from a Neyland game, Geerts noted that the pressure of orchestrating the flyover created a distinct kind of nervousness. The Pride of the Southland Band marched onto the field, and Geerts felt they were behind schedule. He began listening to the band, trying to keep track of the timing. At some point, he lost his place.
Meanwhile, the aircraft—a C-17 from the 315th Airlift Wing at Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina—had departed its holding pattern 10 miles south of Neyland Stadium and would soon arrive. The aircraft commander needed timing in minutes and seconds: should he slow down, speed up, or maintain the agreed-upon time? Suddenly, Geerts was uncertain. Still listening to the Pride, he gave an estimate. The plane arrived early—almost 10 seconds early. So instead of following its original sideline-to-sideline course, it banked around the stadium and crossed the field northbound right on time.
"They would have been early had they not banked out toward the south side of the stadium," Geerts said. "(The plane) leveled out right as he pulled over, and the crowd went nuts." The timing was perfect. Neyland Stadium erupted into raucous cheers as the C-17 flew overhead, and "Home of the Brave!" echoed into the airwaves. Geerts breathed a sigh of relief. Looking back a few days later, he would call it all a blur.
The Neyland Effect
Flyovers don't just magically happen. They require coordination between UT Athletics, the military, university police, and others. Approval processes and paperwork start months in advance. And it's a different volunteer-based crew every time. Well, mostly. Associate Athletics Director of Marketing and Fan Experience Jimmy Delaney is a key piece of every flyover puzzle.
At Athletic Director Danny White's UT, the fans are a huge focus. Not only has UT garnered millions more in financial contributions since White's start in 2021, but small touches on the game day experience (like flyovers) have taken off. Delaney loves it. "There's a team of folks that are there with me and we're making all things Neyland awesome—or the Neyland Effect, as we call it," Delaney said. "So everything you see and feel in the game: from videos to music to Sterl to the band, light shows." Flyovers obviously are one aspect of what we do.
Delaney said that since 2021, flyovers are something they try to do every single game—weather and time permitting, of course. Flyovers aren't an option for late games, and sometimes stormy skies throw a wrench in the preferred plan, but both the military and the athletics department work to over-communicate on the front end, ensuring last-minute changes still go over smoothly. "We've really had a ton of emphasis on communication," Delaney said. "We communicate and we over-communicate. The more people that know, the better it's going to be and the more success you're lined up for."
Outside of the crew itself, Delaney's team is generally eight to 10 people on game day. Between field coordination, getting vehicles to the stadium, and helping usher the crew out onto the field after halftime to be recognized, the nonstop pace relies on preparation and backup plans. "When you think about it," Delaney said, "The flyover is 10 seconds over the stadium, but we spend hours and days and months for everything into it."
Falling to Plan B
Flyovers aren't the time to improvise and create a new plan. Like the Auburn game. Originally, there were meant to be two C-17 Globemaster III planes in the flyover. UT alum and '07 grad Lt. Col. Clarke Belfanti was flying in one of them. Belfanti's childhood dream had always been architecture, but he loved aviation even as a kid. He studied architecture at UT while simultaneously serving with ROTC and eventually went into pilot training. On an Oklahoma base, he learned how to fly C-17s, a flexible aircraft designed to transport both cargo and troops.
"The great thing about the C-17 is we can go anywhere, anytime," Belfanti said. "Just kind of never know where you're going to end up in the C-17." In the week before the Auburn game, Belfanti's excitement slowly built. This wouldn't be his first flyover, but he was looking forward to returning to his alma mater and remembering his college days. Plus, UT had given him and his wife free tickets to the game. "We love coming back," Belfanti said. "The energy is fantastic, it's just so much spirit, and it's where I met my wife. It's such a special place. And then to actually be involved in the game and in the school is this kind of way, it's just an incredible feeling and experience."
The morning of the Auburn game, Belfanti practiced the flyover with both planes and their crews. Although the practice typically takes place on Fridays, the weather hadn't been looking great, forcing them to get creative. With retirement around the corner, Belfanti said he was hopeful that the Auburn game wouldn't be his last flyover. The weather had other plans in store. Ten minutes before the planes were supposed to be flying over the stadium, the crew had to make the call and cut Belfanti's plane from the flyover. He was already in the air.
"We had talked through all these contingency plans on Friday before we even left to go up there," Belfanti said. "For something like a flyover, we don't improvise. We establish clear lines in the sand based on terrain, airspace and especially weather about what will fly as a two-ship, single ship or nothing at all." Belfanti maintained that sticking with the plan was the right move. "It's unfortunate I didn't get to actually do the flyover, but it's just the way it goes sometimes," Belfanti said. "The weather always gets a vote."
Thriving in Premeditated Chaos
On Saturdays in the South, change can happen at any moment. "My role on game day as the showcaller is, things are constantly happening and changing," Delaney said. "And a lot of what we do in game is based on game flow—and not how we script it quarter by quarter." Even early in the morning of the Auburn game, Delaney was aware that Plan B would take the flyover from a two-ship to a single ship. He said focusing on the plan instead of panicking over last-minute changes is only helped by his team's overcommunication on the front end.
But Delaney, who said he thrives in the sudden changes, had already caught a larger curveball this season. A couple of hours before Tennessee kicked off against Texas on Sept. 26, Delaney started receiving communication that a very special kind of aircraft might fly over the stadium. Air Force One was en route to Knoxville, with President Donald Trump aboard to watch the football game. Delaney couldn't say much, just in case the hints he'd gotten didn't actually go through. But when the plane was about 15 minutes out, he got the exciting confirmation. Neyland Stadium is currently the only and the first college football stadium that Air Force One has flown over.
"Think about what that stands for," Delaney said. While there is preparation to be handled before the flyover happens, there is also technical skill needed to pull it off. Delaney credited the Air Force pilots' precision with the amount of successful flyovers Neyland has seen over the years. Generally, the flight crews are volunteer-based and made up of alumni. In the Auburn game, both Volunteers and Tigers flew over.
Volunteer Belfanti still felt appreciated by his university, even though he didn't get to execute the job he'd traveled to Knoxville to do. During the second half, he joined the crews of both aircraft on Shields-Watkins Field to be recognized. "Gotta roll with it and live to fly another day," Belfanti said.
Originally reported by utdailybeacon.