All for Tennessee
Fansided

Tennessee football: Vols top 10 upset wins in school history

By Caleb Calhoun

facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
2 of 11
Next
Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images
Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images /

10. 2004: Tennessee beats Georgia 19-14

It’s one of the last great upsets of Phillip Fulmer’s career as Tennessee football’s head coach. The game itself was thrilling altogether. After all, the Vols built a 19-7 lead and had to stop a Georgia Bulldogs final drive that came down to the last second to win.

Live Feed

Baseball 40-40 club: Which MLB players have hit 40 HRs with 40 SBs?
Baseball 40-40 club: Which MLB players have hit 40 HRs with 40 SBs? /

FanSided

  • "Horns Down" will not be a Penalty in the SEC South Bound & Down
  • Arkansas vs. LSU Prediction, Odds, Trends and Key Players for College Football Week 4 Betsided
  • UTSA vs. Tennessee Prediction, Odds, Trends and Key Players for College Football Week 4 Betsided
  • Alabama Football: Power Ranking the SEC after week three Bama Hammer
  • SEC Basketball: 10 potential additions for the league if they ever expanded Busting Brackets

    • Add in the fact that this game was a victory over a Top 5 opponent and resulted in the Vols winning the SEC East, and it would have been a memorable game no matter what. But the circumstances surrounding it make it even better.

    Coming into the match-up, Tennessee was suffering a four-game losing streak to the Dawgs. In fact, the year before, they had lost 41-14 to them at home.

    On top of that, Fulmer and Randy Sanders were alternating two freshman quarterbacks the first four games of the year after replacing senior Casey Clausen, one of the greatest quarterbacks ever on Rocky Top who failed to beat UGA.

    Meanwhile, Georgia entered the year with a senior quarterback in David Greene, the winningest quarterback in SEC history, and with expectations of a national championship. The game was at home, where Georgia hadn’t lost in three years. All that alone made this seem like an insurmountable game for UT.

    But there’s even another factor that made this crazy. The week before, Tennessee football got blown out at home on ESPN prime time by the Auburn Tigers, 34-10. Georgia, meanwhile, beat the defending national champion LSU Tigers 45-16 and was still undefeated.

    All of these factors made Georgia an inevitable double-digit favorite. But Kevin Burnett said at the time his team would see Auburn again in the SEC Title game, all but predicting a win in Athens. He turned out to be right.

    In a bold move, Fulmer turned to Erik Ainge full-time in this game. Ainge did what was needed to win as a true freshman making his first road start, and the Vols pulled off a huge shocker. At the time, it was their third straight win as a double-digit on underdog on the road, and the wins came within a three-year span. On paper, this upset should actually be much higher. But there are some other games that are just so much more memorable we had to put them in there.

    Home/Vols Football