Tennessee football: 10 Vols games vs. South Carolina that dramatically altered history

10. 1998 – Tennessee: 49 South Carolina: 14

This was a blowout game en route to Tennessee football’s national championship. By itself, the match-up didn’t have much of an impact. Sure, a loss by the Vols would’ve ruined their national title hopes.

But considering the South Carolina Gamecocks went 1-10 this year, that was almost certainly not going to happen. What made this game significant, however, was one Tee Martin, who became an NCAA legend with his play.

Martin had a historically great day, completing 23-of-24 passes for 315 yards and four touchdowns. But he completed his first 23 passes to set an NCAA record. In fact, with a completion to close out the game against the Alabama Crimson Tide the week before, Martin had completed 24 straight passes, which was an NCAA record.

He also set an NCAA record for completion percentage in a game with at least 20 passes that day. And the crazy part is it should have been 100 percent. Martin’s final pass was dropped by David Martin, and that drop ended up costing him the records in the future.

Aaron Rodgers broke his consecutive completions record with 29 straight against the USC Trojans in 2004. Greyson Lambert, against South Carolina of all people, actually broke Martin’s record for completion percentage with at least 20 passes in 2015.

Still, this record was significant for how long it stood. And it solidified Martin as a legitimate passer. Heading into that game, he had only been completing 51.7 percent of his passes. After a very mediocre start, he was not looking like the right successor to Peyton Manning.

But the coaches opened up the offense after Jamal Lewis went down, and this was the game where he showed he could handle it. That was significant as well, as Tennessee football began to rely more on Martin’s arm down the stretch to win it all. They may not have known they could do that without this game.