Two years ago, Chase McGrath stepped up and made a 40-yard field goal as time expired to put Tennessee over Alabama while snapping a 15-year losing streak in the series.

What followed was chaos.

The goalposts got ripped apart and thrown into the Tennessee River, chunks of grass were ripped up, Bru McCoy's helmet was stolen and countless other keepsakes were taken.

However, with a large stroke of luck, the ball McGrath kicked is on display in his California home. Here's the journey the ball took before McGrath got it back in his possession and more from the night Vol fans will never forget.

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In a dramatic turn, Tennessee got the ball back with 15 seconds on the clock in a tie game. After Nick Saban and the Tide made questionable decisions in clock management before missing a kick of their own, the Vols had a slim chance to march down the field and win.

That's exactly what Hendon Hooker conducted, though. He first hit Ramel Keyton for a big gain before finding McCoy to get into field goal range. From there, it was only confidence that the Vols were going to win.

"I remember there was a video of Hendon after the game, the social media captured it," McGrath said. "After he threw that pass to Bru, he walked to the sideline and gave his helmet to the equipment managers and was basically like, 'I don't need this, Chase has got it.' Having that confidence from everyone on the sideline, I don't think anybody on the team felt like we weren't going to win it right there, including (special team coach Mike) Ekeler, including Coach (Josh) Heupel and that was the vibes I got from them on the sideline before the kick."

During these moments leading up to the kick, McGrath was taking practice swings into the net on the sideline. While he tried to find peace and focus on the upcoming opportunity, a different Ekeler interrupted him.

This was another bode of confidence for McGrath.

"Ekeler's brother was in town for the game and he was on the sideline," McGrath said. "I didn't know him at the time. Now, I know him, very close to him. But he was on the sideline before I kicked while I was warming up into the net, he started slapping me on the pads. Saying, 'You're going to make this, 'exactly like Coach Ek, they're both the same type of energy, 'We're winning the game, I'm happy for you.' I'm just trying to stay locked in to make the kick. I'm like, 'Thank you, thank you.'"

In the huddle during the down time before the unit took the field, Coach Ekeler and the rest of the team echoed these sentiments.

"We were all so happy and so confident that we were in that position, there was nobody on that sideline that anticipated us not to make that kick," McGrath said. "(Ekeler) basically called that shot before. He had full confidence that I was going to make that kick and that our line was going to block and that (Matthew Salansky) and Paxton (Brooks) would get the ball down on time and that it would be a great operation."

McGrath took his steps as he lined up the kick. He looked at his target, then focused on the holder, Brooks.

In his routine, McGrath doesn't necessarily look up until the ball is well on its flight. His eyes are targeted on the holder to see when his fingers tap the ground to call for the snap and then he stays on that point through contact.

When he made contact with the ball this time, he felt like he got it well. However, when he looked up, he saw the ball fluttering through the sky.

"I look up as the ball is flying through the air and it's, what'd they say, a whirly bird, it's looking like it's a whirly bird," McGrath said. "It felt like it's a good kick but then I look up and I see it's like that. And I'm like, 'Ah geez, maybe I didn't catch that clean enough.' But it went through and I didn't care. With kicking, three points is three points. We're good, we beat Bama, we won the game, let's celebrate."

MORE FROM VOLREPORT: Tennessee vs. Alabama: Game information, notes, storylines

After the celebration, the team reconvened on Monday to watch film. This included that final kick to clinch the victory.

It wasn't until then that McGrath and the special teams unit realized why the ball took the flight that it did.

"I didn't look too much into it until it was time to review the film," McGrath said. "Monday morning, we're going through the film with our special teams unit and we can see, zoom in a little bit, 47 on Bama got (two fingers) on it. That's what caused it to be tipped. Actually, the back judge caught it. You can see on the film in the back on that angle, he does the little deflection sign. It was tipped, but thankfully it still squeaked in there."

As the ball just barely made it over the crossbar, there was no delay. Fans instantly jumped the wall between them and the field and flooded onto Shields-Watkins Field.

This would be the location the party in Knoxville took place for the beginning stage of the night.

"The experience on the field that night after the ball went through, it was surreal," McGrath said. "We were on the field for about an hour and a half I feel like after the game. It was a celebration. People are smoking cigars everywhere."

It donned on McGrath during this celebration that eventually he needed to get to the locker room. He was with his family and friends when he realized this and told them he had to get there to make sure he didn't miss Heupel's postgame speech.

McGrath directed his loved ones to head to the family waiting room while he went back to see what was going on and he'd go back to see them as soon as possible.

"I walk into the locker room, I open the doors, it's like a fog machine," McGrath said. "All the cigar smoke comes bellowing out. There's probably 600 people in there. Everybody's family is in there."

The kicker instantly turned around, got his family and headed back to continue the celebration in the locker room.

Pictures were taken, music blared, chants were sung and of course cigars were smoked.

This went uninterrupted until the media team got a hold of him. McGrath, a key piece in the win, was being asked to participate in postgame media.

At this point, he never had a chance to get out of his uniform. While he sat next to Jalin Hyatt and Hooker who at this point were far out of their pads, McGrath sat down to take questions head-to-toe in his game gear.

"We're in there for what felt like another hour or two, it was just a celebration, late night," McGrath said. "I remember, it was so crazy because everybody is talking, celebrating, taking pictures. All of a sudden, I get grabbed by our media team, they're like, 'Hey, Chase, you got to go to the postgame presser, we need you in there.' I'm still in my full pads. So I go immediately from the celebration right to the postgame presser. I'm the only guy up there still in my full pads. It was unreal. Definitely got home very late after the game ended that night."

There are no nets behind the goalposts at Neyland Stadium. This means when field goals are kicked, Tennessee equipment managers are tasked with tracking down the ball from the stands to get it back.

In situations such as McGrath's kick, that expectation is thrown out the window. With fans storming the field and a frenzy taking over the stands, there is next to no chance that ball would ever be seen again.

McGrath's kick wasn't a normal field goal, though. With an Alabama player getting two fingers on the ball, it spun just past the uprights and directly to one of the equipment managers. From there, it was a mad dash to the locker room.

With the home locker room on the other side of the field, the manager quickly threw the ball into the bag of game balls and took off for the over 100-yard run. While fans stormed the field, he had to make sure nobody tried to take the game ball from him during the dash.

MORE FROM VOLREPORT: Keys to success: What Tennessee football needs to do to beat Alabama

After the weekend of celebration, McGrath went back up to the equipment manager on Monday morning to see if he knew where the ball went.

"I went up to the managers Monday morning because I saw the TV copy of them catching it," McGrath said. "I said, 'Hey, I saw you guys caught the ball, where is it? What are we doing with it?' If one of them wanted to keep it, that would've been totally fine with me. They caught it, that's their memory, that's so cool for them."

The managers wanted to give the ball to the kicker, though. After practice, there was a ball left for him to keep as a momento.

The issue was, it wasn't the right ball. McGrath's and other specialists wanted to make sure it was the same one he kicked. After some forensic work, they deduced it wasn't.

"The first ball I got after practice, all the specialists, we all got together and we had a million angles of that kick," McGrath said. "We had all these HD photos, we could zoom into the ball I actually kicked and there were all these markings on the ball that would align. With how the Nike sign is faded, with the Tennessee logo, with the dimples, with the markings, we have blue markings and each ball is mark differently in different locations on the ball at different angles. The first ball I got back did not match the photo evidence we had of the ball that I kicked."

McGrath grabbed the ball left for him and headed back to the managers. He wasn't mad, he just didn't care for keeping a ball that wasn't from the historic moment.

Talking to the managers, he made it clear that they could keep the real one if they wanted it. He understood that it was a piece of Tennessee history and if the manager who caught it wanted it, that was fine with him.

The managers had the intention of giving the right one to McGrath, though. There was an honest mistake that they wanted to help correct.

This time, they pointed him to the bag of balls that the real one was quickly thrown into after the game. They said it had to be somewhere in there if he wanted to take a look.

"All the specialists, we went in there into the equipment room into the ball bag," McGrath said. "There were about six balls in there and we pulled them all out and analyzed each one. Every specialist had a different angle of the kick with the ball."

With the HD photos along with a video the manager took of him catching it with his phone, they were able to match the distinctive markings.

Now, it is a part of a collection McGrath has started full of commemorative items from one of the biggest kicks in Vols history.

"I basically have a little collection now of keepsakes from that night," McGrath said. "I have the ball, which is the coolest part of it. I had an amazing fan reach out to me on social media, he saved me a piece of the upright which is right over there. I saved a little bit of my cigar from that game. It's upstairs, but my girlfriend for my birthday a week ago put a whole shadow box put together. We have a tiny piece of the upright with a Tennessee logo and my cigar in the middle of it."

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