6. Arkansas Razorbacks
Year: 1992 (Home)
Final score: No. 4 Tennessee Volunteers lose 25-24
There were two heartbreaking losses Tennessee football suffered at the hands of the Arkansas Razorbacks when they played each other. One was in 1999, which the Vols lost after getting to No. 2 in the BCS. However, the first one was much more painful.
Way back in 1992, Arkansas had joined the SEC as an expansion team. The Vols, meanwhile, were the talk of the town. They opened the season with a 5-0 start, and that included an upset win over the Georgia Bulldogs and a blowout win over the Florida Gators.
Those wins were part of a 3-0 start with a first-year quarterback in Heath Shuler and an interim head coach in Phillip Fulmer, who was filling in for Johnny Majors as Majors recovered from open heart surgery. Majors returned to win the Vols’ next two games, and they were 5-0 overall, 3-0 in the SEC and No. 4 in the country with one ranked team left on their schedule.
The SEC East was all but a lock. Coming into town, the Hogs had not adjusted to SEC ball. They were 1-4 overall, 1-2 in the league and had failed to score more than 11 points just once. This should have been a cakewalk for Rocky Top.
However, Arkansas made the game much closer than it should have been throughout. Still, the Vols led 24-16 late. When the Hogs scored a late touchdown, they went for two and didn’t get it. The game should have been in hand.
But Tennessee failed to recover the onside kick. So Arkansas drove down the field and kicked a game-winning field goal for a major upset. This loss began a downward spiral that wrecked the season, which is why it is so high on the list. That downward spiral continues on the next slide.