Tennessee football has had some thrilling finishes in its rivalry against Florida. Here are the Volunteers’ five most exciting victories over the Gators.
Until 2009, Tennessee football led the all-time series with the Florida Gators. In fact, there was never anything memorable about the series until the late 1960s. And it wasn’t taken seriously by either team until the 1990s.
Florida’s 14-13 Gator Bowl win over the Vols in 1969 is really the first notable win in the series. Since then, there have been some thrilling finishes going both ways, even though they have largely on the Gators’ way.
As we mentioned in a post recently, some of these games the Vols gave away. Others, Florida just won in thrilling fashion. But from the perspective of Tennessee football, there are plenty of games the Vols won in thrilling fashion as well.
Gators fans may believe they gave a couple of those thrilling games away as well, and they may be right. Like Tennessee, they may be able to blame officials for a couple of losses in the series as well. Some crazy things have happened in this relatively recent rivalry.
In this post, we’re going to rank the Vols’ most thrilling wins over the Gators. These aren’t all the most meaningful for a season. And they certainly aren’t always the most impressive wins. But they generated the most excitement on Rocky Top. The reason behind the excitement, though, was because of the thrill of the game itself. So the magnitude of the win isn’t relevant here.
And hey, sometimes they were both thrilling and meaningful. After all, the implications of this game in terms of the SEC East standings is what made it a rivalry in the first place. Even if that’s lost its luster recently because of Florida’s dominance in the series the two programs falling off and the arrival of the Georgia Bulldogs to compete in the division, the intensity is still in this game.
So when did that intensity favor Rocky Top? What games gave UT fans the most satisfaction in this series? Let’s look at that here. These are the five most thrilling Tennessee football wins over the Florida Gators.