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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 Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images /

Tier 5

Seasons with a losing record

These seasons speak for themselves. They’ve been all too common recently and are among the worst seasons in school history.

SEC

1958: 4-6 (4-3)

1962: 4-6 (2-6)

1977: 4-7  (1-5)

2011: 5-7 (1-7)

Pre-SEC

1910: 3-5-1 (1-4 SIAA)

1924: 3-5 (0-4)

In 2011, the top three teams in the nation all happened to play in the SEC West, and Tennessee football drew all of them that year. Then they had their East schedule, making for the toughest schedule in the nation. So eight home games was forgivable, and one was against the Cincinnati Bearcats, who also won their conference under, ironically, Butch Jones.

UT went 5-7 that year despite winning all four non-conference games. That was the bad break Derek Dooley got. Things were similar in 1977 only because of the mess Johnny Majors inherited. Meanwhile, the 1958 team was a sliding program under Bowden Wyatt, and like 1961, the 1962 team played only two non-conference games, so it was an irrelevant factor anyway that year.

The two pre-SEC years to make this list were in different eras. In 1910, UT was still a no-name program. They were growing in the 1920s but just took a step back in 1924 under M.B. Banks. Robert Neyland would take it forward two years later.

Related Story. Ranking all 17 Vols conference championship teams. light

Final count

SEC Era: 4 (15 overall)

Pre-SEC: 2 (9 overall)

Complete history: 6 (24 overall)

Percentages

SEC Era: 24 percent (17 percent overall)

Pre-SEC: 14 percent (27 percent overall)

Complete history: 19 percent (20 percent overall)

So when the Vols play all of their non-conference games at home, they surprisingly are more likely to have seasons among their worst when you look at history. It’s slight, but it’s there. These bad years were more common in the pre-SEC years in general, though, and that’s a better metric.

In that regard, the measure clearly shows they have fewer bad seasons with all non-conference games at home. In fact, the margin is so great that it overtakes the usually heavily-weighted SEC years. The Vols, as you can see ever so slightly, are less likely in the totality of their history to have a bad season when they play all non-conference games at home.

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