On September 13, 2014, UT played Oklahoma in Memorial Stadium in Norman, and the 82,000 fans in attendance striped the stadium in crimson and cream by wearing the colors in designated seating areas of the stadium. Spencer Barnett, watching on TV, saw the ABC camera sweep of the stadium and envisioned that 102,455 Tennessee fans could checker Neyland for the October 4 game against Florida by wearing orange or white in designated sections of the stadium. He photoshopped a photo of a full stadium, coloring the sections into orange and white, and posted it to his Twitter account, where it went viral.
Tim McLeod, a 36-year-old Knoxvillian, contacted his coworker, Jonathan Briehl, with the proposition that if Barnett approved, they would launch the website checkerneyland.com and further the dream. Barnett approved, and the website was up and running within 24 hours. UT marketing reached out to McLeod and Briehl, vetted the logistic, and came on board. UTSports.com espoused the effort. Coach Butch Jones endorsed it. By game time 365,000 views of the site had been made, “Checker Neyland” T-shirts were on sale on campus and throughout the area, and 102,455 fans were filing into the stadium. It was the perfect checker. Only the designated Florida sections failed to carry out the color scheme.