Genuine enthusiasm, genuine question: Saturday night will be the most meaningful November home game since…?
Long before 12-team playoffs, Tennessee’s schedule has been perpetually front-loaded. Since the AP poll expanded to a Top 25 in 1989, Saturday will be just the eighth November contest in Neyland between two ranked teams. And before then, the most recent ranked vs ranked November game in Knoxville was in 1960.
Even so, not all of those contests are created equal:
November Top 25 Matchups in Knoxville, 1989-2025
- 1990: #1 Notre Dame 34 #9 Tennessee 29
- 1993: #7 Tennessee 45 #13 Louisville 10
- 1997: #8 Tennessee 44 #24 Southern Miss 20
- 1998: #1 Tennessee 28 #10 Arkansas 24
- 1999: #4 Tennessee 38 #24 Notre Dame 14
- 2006: #13 LSU 28 #8 Tennessee 24
- 2023: #1 Georgia 38 #21 Tennessee 10
- 2025: #14 Tennessee vs #18 Oklahoma
If the question is most meaningful, the top two are obvious, both involving the number one team in jeopardy in the final seconds. 1998 Arkansas and 1990 Notre Dame are two of the most memorable wins and losses in Neyland Stadium history, on any date.
After that? The 1999 Notre Dame game was incredibly important in the BCS era; the Vols jumped from fifth to second in those rankings after the win before falling at Arkansas the next week. 2006 LSU is the kind of game that would’ve meant everything in a 12-team playoff (and produced a different outcome if instant replay existed).
And in that era now, Saturday night will mean everything again.
In this dance between the journey and the destination, Tennessee’s missteps are still waiting for their final analysis. It could be that the near miss against Georgia and the pick six at Alabama, while deeply frustrating, end up being part of the head-nods of an 8-4/9-3 regular season, we’ll get ’em next year, etc.
But that everything is still indeed alive and well, and will be Saturday night. In this playoff era, what you do every Saturday matters so much more in building a resume. And more than at any point since the Vols went to Vanderbilt and won last November, this one will help define the others.
Even unfamiliar as we are with this kind of game at home in November, that’s the way it works at this level, this time of year. This one is everything. And winning will make the next ones worth even more.
Go Vols.