Tennessee football: Top 10 Vols players who never won a championship

Joshua Dobbs was the one player who was able to extend Butch Jones’s career far beyond what it should have been thanks to his amazing play. A smart player, a tough dual-threat guy and a leader, he became one of the most productive players in school history.

In his senior year, 2016, Dobbs had the best offensive output for a Tennessee football quarterback since Peyton Manning. He was also a machine at scoring touchdowns rushing and passing and was responsible for some of the most historic performances a player ever had.

Dobbs’s breakout game was his sophomore year against the South Carolina Gamecocks, when he threw for over 300 yards and rushed for over 100 yards with five total touchdowns and led a two-touchdown fourth quarter comeback. He would do the exact same thing the next year in a three-touchdown comeback against the Georgia Bulldogs, ironically torching Jeremy Pruitt in the process.

All in all, Dobbs had three games in which he totaled five touchdowns and over 400 yards. He also had two more games with five touchdowns and over 370 yards. The guy finished his career completing 61.5 percent of his passes for 7,138 yards, 53 touchdowns and 29 interceptions and rushing for 2,160 yards and another 32 touchdowns. He then caught two touchdown passes as well.

In Dobbs’s senior year, he was historically great, throwing for 2,946 yards and 27 touchdowns while rushing for 831 yards and 12 touchdown and catching another touchdown pass. Yes, that’s 40 total touchdowns he had, more than even Manning’s 39 total in 1997.

On top of all of this, Dobbs was responsible for some huge wins for the Vols. This includes two over Georgia, ending the streak against the Florida Gators and the historic Battle at Bristol. If not for terrible coaching by Jones, he would’ve been a champion. As it is, he was held back because of that and had to carry Jones’s program.