Tennessee football: No, Georgia State is not Vols worst loss ever
Panic has set in on Rocky Top after Tennessee football’s lost to the Georgia State Panthers. But this GSU blemish isn’t the UT Volunteers’ worst ever.
It didn’t take long for all the excitement behind the 2019 Tennessee football season to go out the window. A 38-30 loss that wasn’t even that close to a Sun Belt team who went 2-10 last year will do that.
As a 27-point favorite, talk began about the Vols possibly suffering their worst loss ever. We’re here to say that’s not even close to true. Whether the criteria is the damage a loss did to a season, the embarrassment or a combination of both, this one is high up on the list but not at the top.
If we are judging by embarrassment, which this one clearly is, Tennessee football hasn’t had a loss like this since 2008 to the Wyoming Cowboys. Wyoming went 4-8 in 2008, and that team was worse than what this Georgia State team will end up being, which is significantly better than 2-10 with so many starters back. So that loss was worse.
Just 12 years before the Wyoming loss, Peyton Manning took a top five-caliber Vols team, when they were playing in the peak of their era, across the state to Memphis. UT lost to a 4-7 Tigers team 21-17, which remains their only loss in the series. The Vols were much better then than they are now, and Memphis was on the caliber of what GSU will be this year.
In the 1970s, the Vols lost to North Texas State in 1975 and then the Rutgers Scarlet Knights in 1979. North Texas was definitely a worse loss for Tennessee football than Georgia State, and it effectively ended Bill Battle’s career.
But if we are going to go by damage to a season, there are plenty of losses that fit that criteria as well. The LSU Tigers in 2001 and Ole Miss Rebels in 1969 ended the national title hopes of two Vol teams. The program took forever to recover from that 1969 disaster, and they still haven’t recovered from 2001.
Then there are embarrassing losses that also wrecked UT’s season. Two of those happened in 1992, to the SEC newcomers Arkansas Razorbacks and South Carolina Gamecocks. Both were one-point losses and part of a three-game losing skid, and neither team finished with a winning record. That ended the Vols’ title hopes in 1992 and got Majors fired.
Next. 10 worst upset losses in Vols history. dark
Don’t get me wrong, Georgia State is a bad loss, but there are many others that are candidates for the worst loss in school history. We haven’t established yet that this one will ruin the Vols’ season. If it does, we’ll re-evaluate. But for now, there are plenty of losses that are worse.