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

By Caleb 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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Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images /

9. 2014: (7-6, 3-5)

2013 record: 5-7 (3-5)

Five years after the infamous Lane Kiffin season on Rocky Top, Tennessee football was rebuilding again. This time, it was under Butch Jones, and at the time, fans were on his bandwagon. After a 5-7 season that would’ve been 7-5 had he started Justin Worley the whole year in 2013 and then a Top 5 recruiting class, excitement was high.

But this season also looked dead in the water early. Road losses to the Oklahoma Sooners and Georgia Bulldogs were followed by a bad loss to a bad Florida Gators team. That set the Vols back in morale a bit, as they got walloped two weeks later by the Ole Miss Rebels and saw Kiffin return to Knoxville as the Alabama Crimson Tide’s offensive coordinator a week later.

At 3-5, the Vols fell behind 27-0 after Nathan Peterman started in place of Worley, who suffered another season-ending injury. But then came the move that changed the program, and kept Jones afloat, for the next two and a half yards. Joshua Dobbs stepped in and made the game respectable with a 34-20 loss.

A week later, Dobbs had his coming out party with his first game of five total touchdowns and 300 total yards, which he would do a lot of in the future, and a 14-point comeback win over the South Carolina Gamecocks in overtime. Dobbs helped the Vols win four of their final five games to get to 7-6, and a blowout win over the Iowa Hawkeyes was their first bowl win since the Outback Bowl to end the 2007 season.

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