Tennessee Football: 10 Best Quarterbacks in Vols History

Oct 4, 2014; Knoxville, TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers fans during the first quarter against the Florida Gators at Neyland Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports

Tennessee Football has a long and steep tradition in history with lots of great players. Here are the top 10 quarterbacks in the history of the Volunteers.

With six claimed national titles and one unclaimed title, the Tennessee Volunteers obviously have a long history of winning football games.

Part of that winning tradition includes the great players under center.

This post will take a look at the 10 best quarterbacks in the program’s history.

When it comes to the criteria, we have to take into account the stats relative to the time period but also whether or not these guys were winners.

Tennessee has a tradition of not necessarily setting trends but staying ahead of the curve when it comes to trends.

As a result, though, since high-powered quarterback play in the SEC did not really take off fully until the 1980s, some of the most successful Vols teams do not include the program’s greatest quarterbacks.

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Guys like Bobby Dodd and George Cafego deserve credit for leading Tennessee to unprecedented success in the 1920s and 1930s, but at that time the importance of the offense was based in the halfback and fullback rather than the running back, so they can’t get too much credit for that success.

Meanwhile, it works the other way as well. Tyler Bray and Jonathan Crompton are both in the Top 10 in terms of career stats for quarterbacks, and Bray in particular led one of the greatest offenses in school history.

But there is something to be said about being a loser, and both quarterbacks fit that category, keeping them out of the Top 10.

Meanwhile, despite his career as a three-year player at Tennessee so far, having started two half seasons and one full season, Joshua Dobbs is not on this list yet. But he has one final season to completely facelift his resume, and depending on how he plays, it could vault him all the way up to No. 2 on this list.

So with a mixed criteria to put this list together, here are the Top 10 quarterbacks in Tennessee football history.

Next: #10: Sugar Vols