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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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7. 1950 (11-1, 4-1)

1949 record: 7-2-1 (4-1-1)

Here’s where we threw a trick into the process. We’re not calling these turnaround seasons. They are improvement seasons over ones in which Tennessee football didn’t make a bowl game. As a result, there are quite a few years during the early days in which the Vols fielded good teams but didn’t make bowl games.

One of those seasons was 1949, and that allows 1950 to be on the list as a season in which they had an improvement. Robert Neyland had shown a turnaround in 1949 by going 7-2-1 and finishing No. 17 in the AP Poll after there was concern he had lost it with back to back .500 records in 1947 and 1948.

But then, in the second game of 1950, his team suffered a shocking 7-0 upset loss to the Mississippi State Bulldogs. That would be the last regular season loss for the Vols for two years and their last loss until the Sugar Bowl at the end of their 1951 national championship season.

Following that game, which dropped them to 1-1, the Vols won out, starting with a road upset the next week over the No. 14 ranked Duke Blue Devils. The highlight of their season came on Nov. 25. Ranked No. 9, they played host to Bear Bryant and the undefeated Kentucky Wildcats, who were No. 3 and the greatest team in school history.

Tennessee won that game 7-0 to show that they still owned the series. After dominating the Vanderbilt Commodores 43-0, they received a Cotton Bowl berth, where they upset the Texas Longhorns 20-14 and did enough to claim a national championship because of numerous polls recognizing them as such. After just seven wins in 1949, this was a huge improvement.

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