The Once Glorious Tennessee Football Program Will Never Return To Prominence
By Matt Blake
It is one of the top 10 winningest college football programs in the history of the game but recently the University of Tennessee football program has been nothing but ordinary. Ordinary might even be a stretch compared to the rest of the Southeastern Conference in which it plays. With 804 total wins, the Volunteers program ranks with the nation’s best – Alabama, USC, Michigan, and more. Over the past five seasons, though, the program has won just 28 games and is slowly becoming mediocre, even a doormat in the SEC. The once-prominent Vols college football power will never be again.
Tennessee football has experienced several periods of glory throughout the years dating back to the days of legendary head coach Robert Neyland, who won 173 games during his stints at the university. Bowden Wyatt and Doug Dickey enjoyed success during the 1950s and ‘60s and Johnny Majors added 116 wins to the books between 1977 and 1992.
It was Majors’ offensive coordinator Philip Fulmer who took over the reins of the successful Volunteers program in 1992. Fulmer would go on to coach the likes of QB Peyton Manning and then win a national championship in 1998. Fulmer won 75 percent of his games (152-52), but after a 5-7 mark in 2008, one of only two losing seasons in 17 years, Fulmer was promptly fired. It was the beginning of the end for Tennessee.
Since Fulmer’s exit, the Vols have experienced just one winning season. It happened to be the year after Fulmer’s departure under his replacement Lane Kiffin. Tennessee went 7-6 under Kiffin, an improvement from the previous season, but the Vols suffered losses to perennial rivals Alabama and Florida and were blown out in the Chick-fil-A Bowl by Virginia Tech. Kiffin was a one-hit wonder and took his game to USC the following year.
Derek Dooley, son of the former Georgia legend Vince Dooley, took over for Kiffin and suffered through three losing seasons. At 6-6 in his first season in Knoxville, Dooley took Tennessee to the Music City Bowl where they were beaten by a 7-5 North Carolina squad. While Dooley recruited fairly well, he just did not draw the type of talent necessary to compete for an SEC title. And face it, teams that compete for SEC titles, compete for national titles. Tennessee, unfortunately, is a long way from competing for any title as its program is now headed in an entirely different direction.
Tennessee football has now experienced four consecutive losing seasons and hasn’t won more than seven games since 2007. The third Saturday in October was normally a measuring stick for the Vols’ national status. It is the Saturday that Tennessee faces SEC West division foe Alabama in a traditional rivalry game. Since 2003, that game has been nothing more than an easy win for the Crimson Tide. Alabama has won eight of the last ten in the series and don’t expect that to change any time soon.
In the program’s other rivalry game against Florida, the Vols haven’t experienced a win since 2004 and they have lost the last seven straight by double digits. Last season, the Gators had a rare losing season but still defeated Tennessee, 31-17. As if losing to Alabama and Florida wasn’t bad enough, the Vols haven’t even been able to beat in-state rival Vanderbilt. Tennessee has lost to the Commodores the past two seasons.
The rest of the SEC is passing the Volunteers by. Last season as Florida State broke the SEC’s dominance on the national championship, the rest of the favorites, including runner-up Auburn, were from the conference. As the 2014 season approaches, once again there are six teams from the SEC that are considered national championship contenders. Tennessee is not among them. Alabama, which has won three national titles in the last five seasons, Auburn, last year’s runner-up, South Carolina, Georgia, Missouri, and LSU, which won national championships in 2003 and 2007, are all among the favorites to compete in the first-ever College Football Playoff.
Second-year head coach Butch Jones led Tennessee to a 5-7 record last year. He will have to replace the bulk of both his offensive and defensive lines and does not have a marquee quarterback in the program. The 2014 schedule is brutal with a non-conference game at Oklahoma and SEC games at Georgia and at South Carolina. Another 5-7 season might be the best the Vols can muster in 2014. If it is, remember this. The longer the Tennessee football slide continues; the more that program history ceases to matter. This is happening to Tennessee football right now and is the big reason why the program will never return to national prominence.