Gameday on Rocky Top

“Worst” is subjective, of course. When we did this eight years ago at Rocky Top Talk, “most heartbreaking” was the language we chose. As I wrote Wednesday, turns out heartbreak is also subjective. It doesn’t feel right to tag the toughest losses of the last decade with heartbreak, because that’s typically reserved for stakes bigger than the Vols have played for since 2007. We’ll just go with worst; I’m taking into consideration both how it felt at the time and how it feels today. Here are my picks for the ten worst losses during Tennessee’s decade-long struggle:

10. 2017 Florida

When Tyrie Cleveland caught that pass, I laughed. I don’t think I’ve ever had that reaction to a Tennessee loss before, especially not one on the final play of the game. But this game felt like the summation of everything the Vols had struggled with under Butch Jones: overly infatuated with a close game, an inability to create a successful offensive snap in a crucial situation despite multiple chances, Florida snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. There are more colorful examples of all three further up the list. The ending here felt both unexpected and appropriate. And ultimately, as the 2017 season faded into 4-8 infamy, this loss didn’t matter as much. It wasn’t the difference between success and failure, or Jones keeping his job. It hurt plenty in the moment, but was simply the first chapter of a story we were already dreading.

9. 2008 UCLA

When you wait all summer for college football and your team is coming off an SEC East title, it hurts real bad to lose on opening night. Especially when the other team throws four interceptions in the first half. No one needs to hear me talk about the Clawfense any more; the numbers from this box score (Crompton 19-of-41, Foster & Hardesty 162 yards on only 25 carries) are burned in my brain. The beginning of the end.

8. 2014 Florida

Josh Dobbs is the reason this game doesn’t rank higher for me. He changed the narrative of the 2014 season and the trajectory of the program against South Carolina later that year, one of the most endearing and enduring victories of these last ten seasons. But on this day, Tennessee had seven snaps inside the Florida 20 in the third quarter, and none of them gained a single yard. Two field goals and an interception later, a 3-0 lead was only 9-0, and as we all remember, that wasn’t enough.

7. 2016 South Carolina

This season is still exhausting to think about. The range of emotions from the end of the Georgia game, through the end of the Texas A&M game (the kind of game that definitely makes the list when the Vols are consistently good around it), through getting decimated by Alabama…to this loss. From “team of destiny!” to a defeat that was actually encouraging against A&M, to chalking it up to injuries and Alabama while still having tangible success in front of you…and then it was simply all gone at South Carolina. A steep fall indeed, one Jones wouldn’t recover from.

6. 2015 Oklahoma

Despite the frustrating loss to Florida in 2014, the program was trending in the right direction and Oklahoma was the golden opportunity for Tennessee to announce its return to the national landscape. And man, it felt like that was happening at halftime. But in the third quarter, Tennessee had four drives featuring a 1st-and-10 at their own 44 or better. And those four sequences featured no gains greater than one yard. One missed field goal, three punts, and some heroics from Baker Mayfield later, and the Sooners stole the victory as the Vols blew a three-possession lead for the first time in almost 30 years.

5. 2010 LSU

4. 2010 North Carolina

Remember when these two happened and we thought they would represent the worst things would get for a long time? Eight years later, I think the North Carolina one is worse. Not only did we think we had won for a longer period of time, the LSU screw-up was our fault for having a billion men on the field. The UNC loss can still be blamed in part on the referee not standing over the ball while the Tar Heels substituted, and now college football has the Derek Dooley rule to prevent such a thing from happening again. The unique experience of celebrating a victory before ultimately losing twice in one season is enough to keep these two in the top five.

3. 2011 Kentucky

I can excuse 2008 Wyoming for a number of reasons, and losses like 2017 Georgia or plenty to Alabama can be chalked up to, “They were a lot better than us.” But this one, to me, still stands out. 4-7 Kentucky with a wide receiver playing quarterback and 217 yards of offense broke a 26-year winning streak for Tennessee in this series, costing the Vols bowl eligibility and Derek Dooley almost all the goodwill he had left.

2. 2012 Florida

Perhaps not one you think of right away when going back through the last ten years. But if I’m thinking back to the way I felt at the end of the game? There’s been little worse than this: all the Fulmer-Kiffin-Dooley stuff, back in the Top 25 for the first time since the slide began, and more than anything, the fragile hope that the 2012 team could actually get us back. Midway through the third quarter, it felt like it was going to happen. And then: 80-yard touchdown, interception, 45-yard gain, 23-yard touchdown, Florida up 27-20, and a few drives later a 75-yard touchdown was added on for good measure. Walking out of that stadium I remember very clearly thinking two things: this team won’t be the one to get us back, and now we’re going to have to wait at least three more years to try. I haven’t written after terrible losses because of my grandmother’s death (2016 South Carolina) or our son’s birth (2017 Georgia). But this is the only loss I remember not writing anything for because it simply felt like there was nothing to say except, “We’re going to have to wait another three years.”

1 2015 Florida

We’ll talk in a moment about where this game goes on a list of most heartbreaking losses beyond these last ten years. But within the last ten years, this one, by far, is at the top for me. Beyond the streak and the individual madness of 4th-and-14 are the failures on both sides of the ball. You’ve got multiple fourth down conversions allowed, infamously not going for two, and a final drive after 4th-and-14 when Tennessee had two timeouts and 1:26 but somehow ran only five plays before settling for a 55-yard field goal attempt. And of all the losses on this list, this one was by far the most costly. 2016 South Carolina might have cost the Vols the East. But we know this one did, in a year when Tennessee took two playoff teams to the wire. If any one of a dozen things goes differently in this game, Tennessee breaks the streak a year early, and Josh Dobbs and company get their rings and another shot at Alabama. But alas.

Where would we put any of these on a longer list? Using our 2010 list of the worst losses from 1990-2009, I’d add only one to that Top 10. But I would put 2015 Florida way up there:

Worst Losses 1990-2017

1. 2001 LSU (SEC Championship)
2. 1990 Alabama
3. 2015 Florida
4. 2001 Georgia
5. 1999 Arkansas
6. 2000 Florida
7. 1993 Alabama (tied)
8. 1996 Memphis
9. 2007 LSU (SEC Championship)
10. 1995 Florida

Three years later, I think 2015 Florida is worse than the Hobnailed Boot. This is mostly because the Hobnailed Boot didn’t hurt us in the end: if not for the number one game on that list, the Vols are playing for the BCS Championship despite the loss to Georgia.

That’s our list. What’s yours?

In the quiet of the early summer, we’ve often spent time with Tennessee’s history. Way back in the summer of 2009 at Rocky Top Talk, we counted down the 50 Best Games of the Fulmer Era. The following year we looked at Tennessee’s 20 Most Heartbreaking Losses from 1990-2009. I’ve been going back through the latter this week, comparing some of our toughest losses in the nine years since to see where they might rank. We’ll do that exercise in full later this week, but I want to start with one game in particular.

I was a history major; even as an idiot optimist, I believe there is value in examining our toughest defeats. But what qualifies a game for that list can and will change, specifically based on the quality and quantity of victory surrounding it.

Case in point: how do you feel about this game, nine years later?

So it’s still no fun to watch, of course. But how do you think of it in the context of the last ten years?

When we did our original list of the 20 most heartbreaking losses from 1990-2009, we ranked this game #11, and almost apologized for having it that low. Recency bias was a factor, even with Lane Kiffin out and Derek Dooley in when we did the original list. But in the summer of 2010, we placed it above heart-breakers like the 1990 tie with Auburn and four Florida losses (1996, 1997, 1999, 2002).

This week, when I was putting together my list of the ten worst losses of the last ten years, it didn’t even make the cut.

To be fair, there are more losses to choose from in the last ten years than in the 20 preceding them. That’s literally true, by the way: from 1989-2007 the Vols lost 54 times, plus their first six of the 1988 season. From 2008-2017, the Vols lost 63 times.

But here too, it’s both quantity and quality that count. Tennessee has not had much opportunity for the kind of heartbreak that dominated our old list. How we experience defeat has changed. Our worst losses used to make us mourn what we gave away. Now they make us wonder if we’ll ever get it back.

In 2009, that loss to #1 Alabama was heartbreaking. But it’s not just the sequence of events, the ranking, or the rival. In 2009, we were still attached to the idea of who Tennessee had been for all those years prior. Lane Kiffin’s 45-19 win over Georgia two weeks earlier helped us do that. And the loss to Alabama didn’t take it away; even at 7-6 at the end of the season, fans were very optimistic Kiffin could get the Vols where we wanted to go. Two losses to the number one team in the country, two others by four points each, and a bowl loss to a Virginia Tech team that finished the year fourth in S&P+. We rioted, in part, because we believed in what was happening up until the very moment it was over. And today we enjoy comparing the makeup of Jeremy Pruitt’s staff to Kiffin’s.

In the moment, the 2009 Alabama loss belongs on a list of painful near misses from a championship-caliber Tennessee program. But nine years later, 2009 isn’t the bridge between Fulmer and Kiffin on the straight and narrow road of victory. It’s Exit 2A into the ditch, and there aren’t even any good gas stations.

The program’s inability to sustain success over a decade cut a hard tie from the past, and instead created an era of its own. Viewed through the lens of 2009, the loss to Alabama is heartbreaking. Viewed through the lens of the last decade, it’s a near-miss moral victory akin to 2013 Georgia. The Vols played an equally competitive game with an equally good Alabama squad in Tuscaloosa in 2015, and I don’t think any of us would put it on a list of the ten worst losses of the last ten years either.

Losing always hurts. But it’s not just that the stakes have been lower for most of the last ten years. It’s that this ditch is long and muddy, and you need really good vision to still see the shiny objects in our rear view. At some point it became normal, and our definitions of great wins and bad losses changed based on our surroundings.

The funny thing here isn’t really funny, because we’re putting enough hope in it to take it very seriously: we asked Phillip Fulmer to get out of the car when it was teetering on the edge. Opinions still vary over how many tires were in the ditch back then. And now, after trying and failing in unique and messy ways over the course of almost a decade, Fulmer has the keys again and got to pick the driver. And when in doubt at any point over the last six months, it’s Fulmer’s presence – a shiny object out of the rear view and riding shotgun – that gives me the most hope.

There’s some mud and messiness left, no doubt. Jeremy Pruitt will chase forward progress, with wins and losses along the way this year and beyond. I hope he gets us to a point when losing to #1 Alabama by two points hurts just as much nine years later as the day it happened. And I hope for wins with an even longer memory.