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Tennessee football: Do Vols fare better with all home non-conference games?

By Caleb Calhoun

KNOXVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 15: A view of the outside of Neyland Stadium before a game between the Florida Gators and Tennessee Volunteers on September 15, 2012 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by John Sommers II/Getty Images)
KNOXVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 15: A view of the outside of Neyland Stadium before a game between the Florida Gators and Tennessee Volunteers on September 15, 2012 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by John Sommers II/Getty Images) /
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Photo by Brian Bahr /Allsport
Photo by Brian Bahr /Allsport /

Tier 3

Mostly three losses or four blemishes but three games or more above .500 

These teams had three to five losses and at least four blemishes, but they still finished with winning records, and sometimes they may have had 10 wins or finished in the top 25. Two-loss teams from the early years can be on here since they only played eight or nine games.

SEC

1960: 6-2-2 (3-2-2)

1974: 7-3-2 (2-3-1)

1999: 9-3 (6-2)

2004: 10-3 (7-1)

Pre-SEC

1902: 6-2 (4-2 SIAA)

1908: 7-2 (3-2 SIAA)

1913: 6-3 (1-3 SIAA)

1920: 7-2 (5-2 SIAA)

Tennessee football’s 1999 and 2004 teams are tweener teams, as both played three non-SEC games at home, one of them being the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and while one won the East, the other finished in the top 10 despite three losses. Still, they belong on this list. The 1974 and 1960 Vols were both part of programs on the decline, so those home non-SEC slates probably helped.

Meanwhile, the pre-SEC years in this category are all SIAA years. Two of them are in the only decade outside of this one to see the majority of Vols’ seasons end with a losing record. So they obviouslytook advantage of easy non-conference slates. Zora G. Clevenger and John R. Bender both had one too in 1913 and 1920, two seasons to help restore the Vols.

Final count

SEC Era: 4 (33 overall)

Pre-SEC: 4 (9 overall)

Complete history: 10 (42 overall)

Percentages

SEC Era: 24 percent (38 percent overall)

Pre-SEC: 29 percent (27 percent)

Complete history: 32 percent (36 percent)

These are your run of the mill Vol seasons. UT’s history says they should be maybe a three-loss team and finish somewhere in the top 25. Simply put, average by Vol standards, historically that is, defines this tier.

In that regard, these type of seasons are actually less common in the SEC era. All non-conference games at home doesn’t make things par for the course. It’s a bit different in the pre-SEC years, as the Vols were almost identical at that point. but when you factor in SEC play to the totality of their history, average seasons are slightly less common than all non-conference home games.

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