Tennessee football: 10 heartbreaking game-winning TD drives Vols allowed

5. Nov. 9, 1996

Memphis Tigers at No. 6 Tennessee Volunteers

Final score: Memphis wins 21-17

It’s a win that the city of Memphis never forgets. Tennessee football owns a 22-1 series advantage over the Memphis Tigers, but Memphis’s one win in the series just happened to come against one of the Vols’ most talented teams led by Peyton Manning.

This UT team was a bit let down because of its early season loss to the Florida Gators. They would not do better than their 11-1 record from the year before, and that became clear when Steve Spurrier’s team clinched the SEC East the week before.

That letdown led to a very sluggish performance against a bad Memphis team. Most notable was Manning’s inability to get the offense going. Meanwhile, the highlight of this game was a kickoff return touchdown by Kevin Cobb in which everybody thought he went down, a play that eventually won an ESPY.

But despite the return and the bad offense, the drive at the end was no less significant. Down 17-14, the Tigers had the ball at their own 30 with under six minutes left. And after generating nothing all day, they slowly moved down the field.

In the end, Qadry Anderson hit Chris Powers on a three-yard touchdown pass with 34 seconds remaining to take a 21-17 lead. That was all the Tigers needed, and they pulled off an amazing upset because of that drive.

Tennessee would win out to finish the year 10-2 and once again in the top 10. But that Memphis loss really made this an underachieving season for the Vols after they started the year out ranked No. 2 in the nation.