Just before kickoff of the first Tennessee-Florida game as Eastern Division rivals in 1992 (after the old SEC rotation brought them on each other’s schedule in 1990 and 1991), one of my dad’s friends made a comment in our section about how the Gators would soon become Tennessee’s biggest rival. To my 10 year old brain, that was blasphemy – and it still sounds a little that way at 37 – but if we’d all known what was coming, we might’ve agreed.
The other answer to that question is a rivalry built on streaks. This one, turning 30 this week, has arguably carried a more potent brand of both agony and ecstasy. Alabama and Tennessee take turns being big brother. With the Gators, Tennessee has been little brother that wins just enough for us to want more.
Images from those wins are burned in our memories. Dale Carter to open the second half. Mose Phillips in the rain. No-sir-ree. Travis Stephens vs Guss Scott. James Banks and James Wilhoit. And Jauan Jennings gleefully coming down the sideline.
A question we asked a lot during the Butch Jones era was some form of, “Doesn’t Tennessee actually have the better team this year?” It’s the one we wanted to be true all those years in the 90’s, when losses could at least be chalked up to elite competition. As lesser Florida teams still found a way to turn the Vols into even lesser versions of themselves, the rivalry evolved into a new level of frustration. The Gators were, for a long time, the team standing between Tennessee and the top of the mountain. Most recently they’ve become the team that’s kept Tennessee from being “back”.
There’s a world of should’ve packed into this decade with the Gators. In the mid-90’s, Florida took hope away early. In the last seven years, they’ve stolen it late. In 2012 the Vols led 20-13 with five minutes left in the third quarter and lost (by 17). In 2014 the Vols led 9-0 on the next-to-last play of the third quarter when Justin Worley was blindsided. The Vols lost. In 2015 the Vols scored to take a 26-14 lead with 10 minutes left in The Swamp, chose not to go for two, and it all went very bad from there. And in 2017 the Vols had 1st-and-goal at the nine with a minute left, settled for three to tie, and you know how that ended too.
So it was almost nostalgic when Florida took Tennessee’s hope right away last season, a hyper-aggressive gameplan backfiring into six turnovers and Tennessee’s first ten drives ending in something other than a punt or a touchdown.
Tennessee doesn’t have the better team this year on paper. In 30 years of doing this, the Vols have been favored to beat Florida seven times (via Covers.com). And the Vols have beaten Florida seven times. Three times, Vegas got it right: the Vols rolled in that first meeting against Spurrier in 1990 from -4.5 to a 45-3 win. Tennessee was -3 in 2004 when James Wilhoit went from goat to hero. And three years ago, the Vols turned -4 into a 21-3 hole into 35 straight points.
Four times, the Vols have lost as a favorite: nightmarish first halves in the rain in 1996 and 2002 in Neyland, that nightmarish finish in 2012, and four years ago in The Swamp, the only time Tennessee has been favored in Gainesville (-1) since the rivalry was played annually.
(I’d rate that loss, by the way, as third-worst of my lifetime. 2001 LSU is the undisputed champion, and I hope stays there for the rest of my life. 1990 Alabama is number two. But I think everything about that 2015 loss – the series of horrendous coaching decisions in those last 10 minutes, the carryover fury from Oklahoma, and the fact that it cost the Vols the SEC East when other infamous losses cost Tennessee far less – it’s the worst of a very bad time these last 12 years.)
Four times, Tennessee pulled the upset. In the downpour in 1992 at +4.5 with a young Phillip Fulmer on the sideline. The eventual National Champions were +3 when Collins Cooper sailed wide. The last win in The Swamp in 2003 came with the Vols +3. And, of course, the +16.5 in December 2001 in what is still the best football game involving one of my teams I’ve ever seen.
This year, the Vols opened at +12.5. It quickly swelled to +14.5. Despite only beating the Gators seven times in 29 tries, +14.5 is the third biggest line the Vols have faced in this series, trailing the 16.5 they turned around in 2001, and the +30 they easily covered when everyone thought Urban Meyer might actually attempt murder on Lane Kiffin.
Unlike the current nature of the Alabama rivalry, where the Vols have faced lines of 29.5, 36.5, 28, and 29 in this decade, Florida is always right there within reach. It’s what makes it hurt more when the Vols fail to grab it. And it’s what makes us hope – even this year – that another Saturday we’ll remember forever might get added to our list.