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Tennessee football: 4 biggest upsets in Vols series vs. Georgia Bulldogs

By Caleb Calhoun

ATHENS, GA - SEPTEMBER 2: General view of a statue of the Georgia Bulldogs mascot prior to their game against the Appalachian State Mountaineers at Sanford Stadium on September 2, 2017 in Athens, Georgia. (Photo by Michael Chang/Getty Images)
ATHENS, GA - SEPTEMBER 2: General view of a statue of the Georgia Bulldogs mascot prior to their game against the Appalachian State Mountaineers at Sanford Stadium on September 2, 2017 in Athens, Georgia. (Photo by Michael Chang/Getty Images) /
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Tennessee football is a big underdog at the Dawgs Saturday, but there could be a shocker. Here are the four biggest upsets in the Volunteers vs. UGA series.

When Tennessee football takes the field against the Georgia Bulldogs in Athens on Saturday, the Vols will be a historically high underdog. Despite leading the overall rivalry and a period of dominance from the 1990s still unmatched in this series, the pendulum has clearly swung the other way.

The 15-year fall of the Vols and the rebuild of the Dawgs starting with Mark Richt and continuing with Kirby Smart has culminated in Georgia being a 31-point favorite against UT on Saturday. That’s an unheard of line in this series, which has produced as many thrillers as the Tennessee-Florida series in recent years, and quite honestly has been much more competitive.

To be fair, Tennessee football is rebuilding this year once again under Jeremy Pruitt, who served under Kirby Smart with the Alabama Crimson Tide and also spent time as defensive coordinator for UGA in 2014 and 2015. So as you can see, there are lots of connections here.

On top of that, this series has a history of a few major upsets. Okay, none of them are 31-point upsets. But the Vols and Dawgs have each delivered a few heartbreakers in the past to each other in this series.

In this post, we’re going to take a look at those upsets. Each of these games had a certain level of historical significance to them. They either signified the arrival of a program, brought national recognition to a head coach, or derailed a championship season.

Such is the case with this series. To be a big upset, it has to include a rankings disparity AND a large point spread. For instance, the Vols were unranked against the No. 12Dawgs in 2007, but they were favored in their game, which means it wasn’t an upset.

So let’s take a look at the games that really defined this as a rivalry because of how they shocked the masses. These are the four biggest upsets between Tennessee football and the Georgia Bulldogs in the history of the rivalry.

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