Vols Football: Tennessee From the View of a Senior

It’s been a difficult four years for the Vols. Historically bad, in fact. But that doesn’t mean the future has to be just as bleak. PHOTO: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

The Tennessee Volunteers will take the field at Neyland Stadium for the last time this season this upcoming Saturday evening. For the few seniors on the team, it will be the last time they play in Knoxville wearing the orange and white of the Vols.

As a senior student myself at the university, it’s been quite the ride. The last four years of Tennessee football won’t be the most fondly remembered era in program history. In fact, it’s seen some of the worst play in recent memory.

When I (and all the other four-year seniors) started our careers at UT, there was some optimism around the program. Even though 2010 had some heartbreak in losses to LSU and North Carolina in the Music City Bowl, sophomore quarterback Tyler Bray and young receivers Justin Hunter and Da’Rick Rogers looked like they were poised to tear up the SEC.

The 2011 season had its share of disappointments, but after a thrilling 27-21 victory over Vanderbilt, Vol fans were confident Tennessee would go bowling once again with only lowly Kentucky left on the schedule. A victory would mean three straight bowl trips, and it would leave the memories of the 2005 and 2008 seasons far behind.

What happened, however, was one of the worst losses in program history. The Vols went to Lexington and only needed a win over the 4-7 Wildcats. Kentucky came out with wide receiver Matt Roark at quarterback, and it looked like a rout was in store that Saturday. But the Vols put up one of their worst offensive performances in recent memory, and a CoShik Williams rushing score in the 4th quarter gave Kentucky all the lead they would need. The Wildcats downed the Vols 10-7 and left the freshmen of 2011 with a bitter taste in their mouths.

Then Da’Rick Rogers was dismissed from the team. The leading receiver from the previous season was gone, but the addition of JUCO star Cordarrelle Patterson brought a buzz to the team heading into the season.

The 2012 Vols entered the season ready to move on from the disappointment of 2011, and after a resounding 35-21 victory over North Carolina State, Tennessee looked well on its way to doing so.

Then came the Florida game. The Vols were actually ranked, the first time since the beginning of 2008 that they had been in  the top 25, and ESPN’s College Game Day was in town for the match-up of SEC rivals. Local and national media had been talking about how the Vols were finally “back.” And when the Vols took a 20-13 lead over the Gators, it looked like they were.

Then the wheels came off.

Tennessee’s defense did something against Florida it would do the rest of the 2012 season: Fall apart. The Gators gashed the Vols on an 80-yard TD run and a 75-yard TD pass and scored 24 unanswered points en rout to a 37-20 victory. The performance in that game had more foreshadowing in it than any Tennessee fan knew at that point in the season.

The Vols lost heartbreakers to Georgia and South Carolina later that season, and they escaped against Troy even after allowing a program-worst 721 total yards of offense to the Trojans. Missouri came to the Knoxville for the first time ever the following weekend,  and the Vols looked in good shape at the half, leading 21-7.

But, as they had done multiple times in 2012, Tennessee’s defense had a meltdown in the second half and couldn’t tackle anyone on the opposing team. Missouri rallied and forced overtime, even though the Vols had possession of the ball with two timeouts and time on the clock in the 4th quarter.

The decision not to try and win it there doomed the Vols, and four excruciating overtimes later, the Tigers prevailed 51-48.

The week after that, Tennessee was beaten senseless by Vanderbilt, 41-18. Head coach Derek Dooley was fired, and the Vols were eliminated from bowl contention once again. The Vols had a historically potent offense in 2012, but unfortunately they also had a historically inept defense that plagued them all season. Thus is the luck of Tennessee.

Butch Jones became the new head coach of the Vols for the 2013 season, and the first year coach was quickly a hit with most fans. But Vol fans were ready to mail it in and prepare for more rebuilding after yet another poor performance against Florida, and the 2013 season looked to be more of the same. But then magic almost happened in Neyland Stadium two games later.

The Vols, decked out in their new Smokey Grey uniforms, gave the then No. 6 Georgia Bulldogs all they could handle, taking them to overtime in front of a sold-out Neyland Stadium. But, as had been the luck of the Vols for the last half decade, the team came up literally inches short of stealing one of the biggest upsets in program history when Pig Howard dove, stretched, and fumbled mere inches short of the goal line, and the ball flew into the back of the endzone, ending Tennessee’s possession and their hopes of the victory.

A bye week came, and fans let the close loss fuel their hopes that maybe, just maybe this year could actually be different. Yes, this had happened in 2010 with LSU. Yes, the Vols had come close before since 2008. But this felt different.

And an inconceivable 23-21 victory over No. 11 South Carolina on October 19th seemed to confirm those hopes.

The Vols used a nearly miraculous last drive against the Gamecocks to set up the game-winning field goal as time expired, and for once, Tennessee finally capitalized and snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.

Tennessee sat at 4-3, and Butch Jones did something Derek Dooley never did: earn a signature win. Surely this 2013 squad would be the overachieving team that finally reached a bowl game. This is where things would turn around.

Three consecutive losses later, and nothing looked certain. Junior QB Justin Worley went down the following week against Alabama, and freshman QB Joshua Dobbs had been leading the offense since, but after running into SEC Championship Game-bound Missouri and Auburn, the Vols were beaten and battered heading into a match-up against Vanderbilt.

I will never forget the misery of that 2013 Vanderbilt game. Not only was it cold, but the wind was ripping and bitter, chilling you to the bone and abusing any exposed skin on your body. The game on the field reflected the weather, as both teams struggled to do anything offensively.

But Tennessee was leading late in the 4th quarter, and fans were starting to feel the tide turn. They were just 2 wins away from a bowl, and surely the Vols could beat Vanderbilt and Kentucky, two teams they had once owned simultaneous 20-plus winning streaks against.

But you know the story by now. You know that something, anything, that can go wrong for the Vols inevitably will. And it did on that night as well.

A local boy by the name of Patton Robinette, a kid who grew up mere miles from UT at Maryville High School, dashed 5 yards into the endzone with 16 seconds left to play and lifted the Commodores to a stunning 14-10 victory, ending Tennessee’s season in November for a 4th consecutive season.

My four years on Rocky Top saw the last two years of Dooley’s tenure as head coach and the first two of Butch Jones’s (his second being this season). As it stands right now, I’ve never seen a Tennessee bowl game as a student. The last time the Vols made a bowl was the year before I was admitted to the university. These seniors are in danger of never going to a bowl game in their Tennessee careers.

In the four years these seniors have been with the program, the Vols have gone 20-26 overall and 6-24 in SEC games. They’ve never won against Florida, Alabama, or Georgia. In fact, these seniors have lost twice to Vanderbilt and will finish 2-2 at best against the Commodores.

The last time a group of Tennessee seniors didn’t finish with a winning record against Vanderbilt was from 1934-37. There was a point when Tennessee owned a 23-game winning streak over the Commodores. But they’ve now lost 2 straight to their Nashville brothers.

The last four years have seen the Vols win exactly one game against a ranked opponent. That win against South Carolina in 2013 is the only one, and while the Vols have a chance at earning a second this Saturday against Missouri, that would mark only 2 wins against ranked opponents in 47 total games to that point.

In fact, the Vols have had an impressively tough schedule the last four years too. Of the 46 games the four-year seniors have seen, 22 have been against ranked opponents. Nearly half of all the games the Vols have played in the last four seasons have been against top 25 competition. Missouri will mark the 23rd ranked team in the last 47 games for Tennessee.

So when the Vols take the field for senior night Saturday night, remember what these seniors have seen. Not only the players, but the students as well. All Vol fans have suffered these last few seasons, but these last four years have offered a special kind of pain: the pain of hope.

Vol fans have been patient and have been told better days are coming for so long now that it has become more of a joke than a hopeful phrase to hang on to. But with the emergence of a potential rising star in Josh Dobbs and young play-makers on both sides of the ball (with good character, I might add), things finally seem like they’re turning around. And it doesn’t feel like it did in 2011. Or 2012. Or even 2013.

No, these seniors can go out Saturday knowing that, win or lose, the worst is behind them. They may not be here to see the better days of Tennessee football, but those days are coming. They paid their dues, and fans won’t forget some of them for “giving their all” for the program.

The past four years have been a tough pill to swallow, but the next four certainly look more promising.

All series info and historical statistical info via collegefootball.bz and ESPN.com