Tennessee Football: The Vols Have A Lot in Common With Nebraska

Tennessee football will meet Nebraska in the Music City Bowl. The Volunteers and Cornhuskers have more in common than just being great in the 1990s.

Tennessee football will face off against Nebraska in the Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl this Friday.

The game was not the destination that was the pre-season goal of the Vols. All in Big Orange Country are aware of that.

It especially wasn’t the goal early in October when Tennessee was 5-0 and in the Top 10.

The Music City Bowl also wasn’t where the Cornhuskers from Lincoln, Neb. thought they would end up mid-season. After all, they started 7-0 and reached as high as No. 7 in the AP Poll.

In fact, these two programs have much more in common than a bowl game that falls short of expectations.

Let’s start positive and talk fans.

Tennessee and Nebraska are top-class when it comes to passionate college football fanbases. Neyland Stadium is at 100k-plus almost every Saturday, Vol fans invaded a racetrack for the Battle at Bristol (and won the tailgating as well as the game), the attendance at Vol Walk for bowl games is a sight to behold, and they turned Knoxville into Morgantown, WV after UT beat Florida this year.

For the Huskers, to say their fans are dedicated would be an insult. Memorial Stadium in Lincoln has had a streak of 354 consecutive sellouts since 1962. That is by far the NCAA record. The class of Nebraska fans is almost unmatched in college football. Their passion also shows on the road, as they are similar to Kentucky basketball fans in how well they travel. Just ask Notre Dame.

Now, for the negative.

As was alluded to, each team started out very hot this year. Both were in the Top 10 and undefeated before finishing their seasons in disappointing fashion. Tennessee football finished its last seven games with a 3-4 record. That included inexcusable losses to South Carolina and Vanderbilt after starting out 5-0 for the first time since 1998.

They ended an 11-year losing streak to Florida and won on the road at Georgia with a hail mary. But several key injuries and shameful defensive play cost the Vols the SEC East and the Sugar Bowl.

After starting 7-0, the Cornhuskers went 2-3 in their final five games. They lost the Big Ten West division to Wisconsin in a heartbreaking overtime loss. Also, Ohio State and Iowa blew them out 62-3 and 40-10 respectively. Nebraska’s hopes for a Big Ten Title opportunity or a Rose Bowl appearance vanished after a very promising start. (To be fair, they faced weaker competition early on.) That start included a thrilling 35-32 home win over then ranked No. 22 Oregon. It was a strong victory at the time.

Now when you look further back and compare these two programs, you find that both Tennessee and Nebraska have been falling short of their historical expectations for quite some time. It is not just this year.

In comparing the all-time significance of the Vols and the Huskers, there are many similarities. Both programs rank in the top 10 in all-time FBS wins (2nd for Nebraska, 9th for Tennessee), have a combined 11 claimed national championships (six for Tennessee, five for Nebraska), 62 conference titles, and have produced several College Football Hall of Fame coaches and players such as Johnny Majors, Tom Osborne, Reggie White, and Mike Rozier among many others.

And each program saw the height of their modern-day success in the 90’s. Nebraska was the team of the decade, winning three national titles (’94, ’95, ’97), seven conference titles, and 125 games. The Vols were right behind them with the first BCS Championship in 1998, three conference titles, and 123 wins. Both teams would face-off in bowl games as well. Nebraska won both the 1998 Orange Bowl and the 2000 Fiesta Bowl.

However, over the past decade-plus, Tennessee and Nebraska have been a shadow of their former selves. You can actually pinpoint the year 2001 as the year where both programs started to go on the down-slide. It was the last year that either team was in the national title picture at the end of the season.

Tennessee, as it’s well-documented, blew an opportunity to play Miami in the Rose Bowl for the BCS Title after being upset by LSU in the SEC Championship Game. The team that ended up facing off against the Hurricanes was none other than the Cornhuskers (in a very controversial decision where they got in over Oregon), led by that year’s Heisman winner: Eric Crouch. Nebraska went on to lose to Miami 37-14 a little over a month after having their perfect season ended in a 62-36 thrashing by rival Colorado.

At the end of the year, both teams finished in the Top 10 of both polls. In 15 years, neither have finished a season higher than No. 12.

AFT editor, Caleb Calhoun, further explains the Vols and Huskers’ misery since the early 2000s in his article on the five storylines to watch for in the Music City Bowl:

"Sure, they have a few very good years sprinkled in since 2000, but neither team has had a Top 10 finish or fewer than three losses since 2001. In fact, Nebraska has failed to finish with fewer than four losses since 2003, a year when they fired Frank Solich, and Tennessee has failed to finish with fewer than four losses since 2004.They’ve both had four head coaches since 2001 as well. And they haven’t won a conference title since the 1990s."

Tennessee has only had two conference title game appearances since 2001 (losing both), and despite Bo Pelini getting the Huskers to three conference championship games in four seasons, he was always a shoe-in for four losses and never getting that 11th win.

So here we have two historically great programs that have been a lot more mediocre on the field than their past standards in recent times meeting in a bowl that some fans (especially Tennessee’s) are not too enthusiastic about. For Tennessee football, you have massive disappointment and frustration over the way the season has gone after it started of like a Big Orange dream. You also have questions about what the future holds in store for the Vols with Butch Jones’ seat boiling and UT searching for athletic director Dave Hart’s replacement.

For the Huskers, it isn’t nearly as bleak. Mike Reily showed signs of great improvement in his second season in Lincoln. However, he will have to replace many key players like quarterback Tommy Armstrong and receiver Jordan Westerkamp in 2017. As loyal as Big Red’s fans are, though, you have to think that they are getting tired of being good but not great like they were not that long ago.

But hey, even if the game isn’t all that great, both fanbases can bond together in the bars on Broadway. And they can talk about how great the 90’s were.

‘Member Bill Clinton?