Tennessee football: October has wrecked Vols seasons in recent years
Tennessee football’s struggles over the past decade have been well-documented. Traditionally, October is when the Volunteers’ season went downhill.
Jeremy Pruitt got out of September 2-3 in his first season as Tennessee football head coach. However, after a bye this week, he’s going to be entering the most brutal stretch that the Vols are used to having: October.
You’ve seen the story 100 times. Well, actually, it’s nine times to be exact. But that’s still a lot. Ever since the Vols fired Phillip Fulmer, their season goes like this: excitement and hype to start off, derailed by a loss to the Florida Gators and maybe to a non-conference season. But the excitement then builds back up until October hits. That’s when the season comes apart, and the October Sky falls.
Most recently, Butch Jones had his final two seasons in Knoxville come undone because of October. Those were the only two seasons in which he underachieved and didn’t hit par. The most classic case of the October collapse on Rocky Top was in 2016.
Tennessee football had gotten off to a 5-0 start and back to back wins against the Georgia Bulldogs and even Florida Gators. The Hail Mary to beat Georgia on Oct. 1 hinted that this team was special. However, what was supposed to be a great season came apart because of October. A close loss to the Texas A&M Aggies was followed by a blowout loss to the Alabama Crimson Tide.
All of a sudden, 5-0 was 5-2. But the turning point game was two weeks after the Alabama loss. Coming off a bye, the Vols suffered an upset loss to the South Carolina Gamecocks. So an SEC East title season was derailed by three straight losses, and Jones’s seat exploded.
Then came the next year, calls to fire Jones reached peak levels after another loss to Florida. But the Vols still entered October 3-2. And another October collapse did Jones in. A bye week the first weekend of the month, just like this year, did nothing. The Vols came out of that with losses to South Carolina, Alabama and even the Kentucky Wildcats. All of a sudden, they were 3-5, and Jones was pretty much done.
A team that used to be known for winning all the time in November is now losing all the time in October. There’s a clear reason for that. Traditionally, dating back to the days of Johnny Majors, the Vols always had their toughest stretch in October. At their peak, they would win a couple and lose one or two that month.
Then the Vols would finish strong in November, cashing in on their easy schedule against the Vanderbilt Commodores and Kentucky Wildcats along with, usually, a homecoming game. But now things have changed. Tennessee football gets destroyed in October, and they enter November just hoping to reach bowl eligibility, splitting their games against the bad teams.
Now in 2008 and 2009, the Vols were as bad in September as they were in October, but they were still bad in October. By the time Derek Dooley took over, though, it was clear that October was the month to wreck the season.
Under Dooley’s watch through three years, the Vols went 1-11 in October, and their won win was Oct. 1 in 2011 against the Buffalo Bulls. In 2010, after a 2-2 start, the curse showed early. Tennessee football’s first October game that year was against the LSU Tigers, and that was the game they lost because of 13-men on the field. It set of a four-game losing streak to drop the team to 2-6.
In 2011, after the Buffalo win, the Vols were 3-1 with a chance to prove themselves. But an injury to Tyler Bray added to an already-existing injury to Justin Hunter against a very beatable Georgia Bulldogs team at home. The Vols lost that en route to four straight, including another loss to a beatable South Carolina Gamecocks team.
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Dooley’s season came apart in October in 2012. Again, he started 3-1 with the Vols’ traditional loss to Florida. But the Sal Sunseri defense got exposed. It started in early September with a close loss to the Georgia Bulldogs, but signs of life showed in that one. Then came October and losses to the Mississippi State Bulldogs, Alabama Crimson Tide and South Carolina Gamecocks. A team that had tons of promise was 3-5, and Dooley was all but done.
Jones was the exception his first three years. He actually as bad in September his first two years as in October, and he was worse in November in 2013. But don’t worry, everything was still bad in October. The biggest outlier to all this was 2015.
That year, Tennessee football fell to 2-3 after an Oct. 3 loss to the Arkansas Razorbacks. A major disappointing year had fans read to turn on Jones. But he righted the ship, and the Vols upset the Georgia Bulldogs, almost beat the Alabama Crimson Tide and blew out the Kentucky Wildcats to get to 4-4 and set the stage for a strong November finish.
Coming off a bye week this year, Tennessee football has a brutal stretch at the Auburn Tigers, vs. the Alabama Crimson Tide and at the South Carolina Gamecocks. But Jeremy Pruitt could look to 2015 for encouragement. Being competitive in that stretch could set the tone for a strong November finish. And it could also rewrite Vols tradition on a general scale over the past decade.
For the longest time, October has been defining the season for this team, and it’s been in a negative way. The Vols can’t turn themselves around as a program until they can let the month define their season in a positive way.