A Sleeping Giant
Overvalued. Overrated. Delusional. Psychotic. These are words a lot of people seem to use when talking about Tennessee’s program and its fans. And if you look at the last 10 years of college football, shouldn’t there be merit to those words? If you take the last decade of football out of context, you can make that argument. Tennessee has reached the lowest point it has ever been at, not just last year, but since 2008. It has been a very dark time for the Vols. But this is not how Tennessee football has been throughout its history.
In 2002, utsports.com published an article titled “UT: College Football’s Winningest Program Last 75 Years” (imbedded is the link to said article). Over that period of time, Tennessee had amassed the best win percentage in the college football world at .733, even beating out Alabama’s .730. This wasn’t over the span of the 90’s that many like to point out…this was a 75 year period, since 1926. This was the period in college football history where the perennial greats became great; programs like USC, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Texas, Michigan, and Ohio State. And Tennessee was at the top of that list.
Legendary coach Phillip Fulmer was one of many in a line of coaches to contribute to that legacy. He was the fastest coach in SEC history to reach 75 wins at the time. He had led Tennessee to a record of 95–20 between 1992 and 2002, a .826 percentage. This is second only to the great General Neyland’s .829, which launched Tennessee into the program they would become. After Neyland came many Hall of Fame coaches, including Bowden Wyatt (.622), Doug Dickey (.738), Johnny Majors (.645), and Phil Fulmer (finished his career with .745).
Mediocre. That’s all Tennessee has ever been some say. Even though the rest of Fulmer’s tenure would drop Tennessee down, it would only be by a smidge. By the time Fulmer was forced out, Tennessee had a .724 record, behind only Ohio State and Oklahoma. It would be the years that followed Fulmer’s ousting that would stain the proud history of the program.
In 2009, Lane Kiffin took over as head coach. He lead the Vols to a 7–6 record before dashing for a job at USC. Derek Dooley was then hired as coach and led the Vols to a 6–7 record before going 5–7 in back to back years. This marked the first time in over 100 years that Tennessee had finished under .500 for three consecutive seasons. Dooley was fired in 2012 and Butch Jones took his place the following year. Jones struggled his first year, finishing 5–7, but it’s no surprise considering the state the program was in, talent and recruiting-wise. Jones began to rebuild the once great program with some great recruiting classes, improving to 7–6 and then two consecutive 9–4 seasons. Everyone thought Tennessee was beginning to come back to the national stage it was once always on.
Then, 2017 happened. 4–8. Winless against SEC teams. First time in history. The most games Tennessee had ever lost in a single season, period. It was ugly to watch. After the years of mediocracy brought to them by Dooley, fans finally thought the Vols were starting to come back. Then a punch to the jugular. They were back to where they were 5 years ago. A laughingstock to the nation.
A once great program had seen the worst of the worst. Not only was it a historically bad season, it was a historically bad decade. From 2008–2017, Tennessee went 62–63, a .496 win percentage. This was the worst decade ever seen by Tennessee since the 1901–1910 seasons…most of which were played before the NCAA was even formed. The Vols went 38–41–10 over that period with a percentage of .483. That was over 100 years ago. Fans hadn’t seen that kind of performance often. Only 10 seasons since then have seen a team finish under .500. It happened 6 times in 10 years since 2008.
It’s fair to say that Tennessee has not been relevant in over a decade. They haven’t. They’ve had the worst decade in program history. So bad that it has made people forget how great this program used to be. But the fans remember a time where the Vols were on top of the college football world. It’s no wonder fans stood up to another coaching hire that would keep us mediocre. They wanted a return to greatness. They wanted to see Tennessee back on the map. Not continue to trudge in the mud that people have forgotten has not always been at Tennessee.
Tennessee is a sleeping giant, and has been sleeping for a while. But it won’t be for long. No storied program like Tennessee has been down long. A program with that much history and that much tradition can’t be. And they haven’t been down long enough to count that out — just 16 years ago Tennessee was at the top of the most winningest programs. And they’ll be back again, soon. Forget about what other teams fans and sports writers think about Tennessee’s past, they’ll be reminded what Tennessee used to be. Let’s help the team get back to the top Vol Nation.
“Let’s go have fun winning championships!”
