Last year Tennessee fell out of the Top 25 after beating Vanderbilt to finish the regular season. The drop was one spot, from 25th to the first team receiving votes. Then the Vols were back in the poll one week later, and finished 17th after a triumphant New Year’s in Orlando.
That one week broke a streak of 28 straight poll appearances, which tied for the sixth-longest in program history via the good folks at College Poll Archive. So we’re currently at four polls without an incident, which makes for 32 out of 33.
It happens, even in the best of times: the second-longest streak on UT’s list came from 1989-1994, 86 weeks between back-to-back SEC titles from Johnny Majors and the beginning of the Phillip Fulmer era. The Vols fell out of the Top 25 in late September of ’94 after a 1-3 start featuring mostly Todd Helton at quarterback. They made the tag to the freshman Peyton Manning (with a side of Brandon Stewart), and the Vols reappeared in the Top 25 at season’s end following a 45-23 win over #17 Virginia Tech in the Gator Bowl.
So 86 weeks in, then 11 weeks out. And then 94 weeks in, the program record from the final poll in 1994 to mid-October in 2000.
We’ve got a ways to go from here to there; perhaps these Vols will be on their way thanks to another freshman quarterback. Those questions really start getting answered tomorrow night, when #14 Tennessee faces #24 NC State.
It’s that visual – Top 25 vs Top 25 at the bottom of your ticker and in the lead block on College Gameday – that still stands out to me. We’ve run these numbers before back when I was writing (much) more often, and I don’t know about you, but I still find them so incredibly meaningful.
When the AP poll went to a Top 25 in 1989, Tennessee played in 84 ranked vs ranked games over the next 19 seasons. That’s four or five a year on average. You just came to expect it; if, again, being in the hunt is the real prize, Tennessee was playing the games that mattered every single year, and winning enough of them to keep mattering.
And then, from 2008-2021, Tennessee played in eight ranked vs ranked games. Eight. And four of those were in four consecutive weeks in 2016. Plus 2012 Florida. 2015 Oklahoma. 2017 Florida. And 2020 Georgia. The Vols lost all four of those, which meant in part they wouldn’t see another ranked vs ranked game those years.
This Saturday, another opportunity arrives. And it will be the 12th ranked vs ranked game the Vols have played since the start of the 2022 season. Twelve, in two years and two Saturdays.
You never know for sure how long they’ll last, and you work like heck for today to become tomorrow. But make no mistake: they may not yet be old, but these days are indeed good.
Go Vols.