Nov 15, 2014; Knoxville, TN, USA; General view of Neyland Stadium during the first half of the game between the Tennessee Volunteers and the Kentucky Wildcats. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports
Tennessee football has a history of players being snubbed of postseason awards. In light of the Heisman announcement here are 10 Volunteers who were robbed.
Once again, an undeserving player won the Heisman Trophy. Derrick Henry capitalized off of the prestige of Alabama football while riding the wave of an amazing offensive line to rob better players like Deshaun Watson, Baker Mayfield, Christian McCaffrey, and even Dak Prescott of the award.
Undeserving award winners has been a big part of college football for a long time, and it has directly affected Tennessee football.
From the Heisman Trophy to the Ray Guy Award, the Tennessee Vols have had a long history of getting no respect from voters on award winners.
They have had numerous All-Americans, and the Vols are one of the Top Five programs in NCAA history in terms of NFL productivity.
Yet they somehow have no Heisman Trophy winner. Isn’t that proof that voters have a grudge against Tennessee?
On the day of the Heisman Trophy voting, we felt it would be a good time to look at the history of Tennessee football and the Vols who were screwed out of awards they should have won.
In some of these cases, the stats were blatantly in favor of the Tennessee player, making it very questionable as to why he did not win the award.
In others, they may have been up for debate, but somehow the Tennessee player always got the snub.
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Fortunately for Tennessee, these awards have no implication on the success of the football team or the success of those individuals at the next level.
NFL scouts are smart enough not to fall for the scam that these awards ceremonies are.
And to be fair, plenty of Vols have won awards when it was clear-cut, such as Eric Berry winning the Thorpe Award, John Henderson winning the Outland Trophy, Peyton Manning winning the Maxwell Award. But plenty of other Vols have been screwed out of such awards.
Here is a look at the 10 times a Tennessee football player was clearly robbed of a postseason award.
Next: #10: Biletnikoff-Robert Meachem in 2006