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Tennessee football: 5 heartbreakers Vols suffered right before facing Florida

By Caleb Calhoun

GAINESVILLE, FL - SEPTEMBER 16: The line of scrimmage is seen during the game between the Tennessee Volunteers and Florida Gators at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on September 16, 2017 in Gainesville, Florida. (Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images)
GAINESVILLE, FL - SEPTEMBER 16: The line of scrimmage is seen during the game between the Tennessee Volunteers and Florida Gators at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on September 16, 2017 in Gainesville, Florida. (Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images) /
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Tennessee football has suffered numerous heartbreakers right before facing the Florida Gators. Here are five of those disappointing games.

This weekend, Tennessee football will be facing the UTEP Miners. The second of two very bad games for the Vols, it’s likely they’ll be looking ahead to the Florida Gators. However, history shows that’s not always the best thing for them.

UT has had plenty of slip-ups and heartbreakers right before its rivalry with Florida. Even worse, they put a damper on the game itself. Throughout their history, the Vols are 4-8 against the Florida Gators when they face them right after a loss.

Tennessee football’s first loss in history to Florida came in 1954, and that was the game after a blowout loss to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. GT was favored in that game and won in a blowout, so it was a bit expected, but it still hurt the Vols for the next game.

In this post, we’re going to look at similar games that turned out to be heartbreakers for the Vols right before they faced the Florida Gators. These are times they lost to teams they should have beaten or when they just blew a game.

So the blowout losses to the Oregon Ducks in 2010 and 2013 clearly aren’t relevant here since everybody expected that. The same holds true in the early history of the Vols, when they lost 14-3 to Dartmouth in 1921 before the Florida game.

There are other losses close to the Florida game that put a damper on the match-up itself but can’t make the list because they weren’t the game before. This includes an upset tie to Army in 1984, losses to the UCLA Bruins in 1994 and 2008, and a loss to the Cal Golden Bears in 2007.

Our list here specifically focuses on heartbreakers the Vols suffered the game before playing Florida. It serves as a lesson that they should not look ahead to the Gators no matter who is up on the schedule before that. So let’s send that reminder with five major Tennessee football heartbreakers right before they faced the Florida Gators.

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