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Tennessee football: Vols 10 most improved years after missing bowl game

ByCaleb Calhoun|
Andy Kelly #8, Quarterback for the University of Tennessee Volunteers runs the ball during the NCAA Southwest Conference Cotton Bowl Classic championship college football game against the University of Arkansas Razorbacks on 1 January 1990 at the Cotton Bowl Stadium, Dallas, Texas, United States. The Tennessee Volunteers won the game 31 - 27. (Photo by Joe Patronite/Allsport/Getty Images)
Andy Kelly #8, Quarterback for the University of Tennessee Volunteers runs the ball during the NCAA Southwest Conference Cotton Bowl Classic championship college football game against the University of Arkansas Razorbacks on 1 January 1990 at the Cotton Bowl Stadium, Dallas, Texas, United States. The Tennessee Volunteers won the game 31 - 27. (Photo by Joe Patronite/Allsport/Getty Images)
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Tennessee football
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2. 1965 (8-1-2, 3-1-2)

1964 record: 4-5-1 (1-5-1)

It was 10 years after Bowden Wyatt had turned around Tennessee football following the retirement of Robert Neyland. Wyatt couldn’t keep his early success, stumbling to 6-4 and then 4-6 his final two years.

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    • In 1963, Wyatt was replaced by Jim McDonald, who went 5-5, which was only a one-win improvement over what Wyatt did. McDonald then departed and was replaced by Doug Dickey, who spent his first season moving the Vols off of the single-wing formation en route to a 4-5-1 record in 1964.

    That move, though, paid off immediately afterward. With a year of his players learning the system and the right quarterbacks in Charles Fulton and then Dewey Warren to run it, this team was ready to take off.

    The Vols started the year 2-0-2 with ties against the Alabama Crimson Tide and Auburn Tigers. They then had a bye week after a homecoming win over the Houston Cougars. And that’s when the first splash win of the season came.

    Dickey’s team upset the No. 7 ranked Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets 21-7 at home the first weekend in November to move back into the Top 10, generating their first bit of buzz in nearly a decade. They couldn’t sustain it after a heartbreaking 14-13 loss to the Ole Miss Rebels in Memphis the next week.

    Following that, however, they beat the Kentucky Wildcats and Vanderbilt Commodores before their second splash win of the season, a 37-34 upset over the No. 5 ranked UCLA Bruins in Memphis. A 27-6 Bluebonnet Bowl victory over the Tulsa Golden Hurricane had these guys finishing the season with an 8-1-2 record and a No. 7 final ranking.

    Tennessee football was so close to an SEC Championship this year, as that one-point loss to Ole Miss is all that cost them. However, the Vols still had a heck of a turnaround season, and in ushered in a period of 10 straight Top 25 finishes.

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