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Tennessee football: Five historic teams with bad losses Vols can look to

By Caleb Calhoun

EUGENE, OR - OCTOBER 10: Head coach Mike Leach of the Washington State Cougars looks up at the video screen during the third quarter of the game against the Oregon Ducks at Autzen Stadium on October 10, 2015 in Eugene, Oregon. (Photo by Steve Dykes/Getty Images)
EUGENE, OR - OCTOBER 10: Head coach Mike Leach of the Washington State Cougars looks up at the video screen during the third quarter of the game against the Oregon Ducks at Autzen Stadium on October 10, 2015 in Eugene, Oregon. (Photo by Steve Dykes/Getty Images) /
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Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images /

It would appear Tennessee football’s season is ruined after an opening game loss to the Georgia State Panthers. But historic teams give the Volunteers hope.

They aren’t the first team to suffer a horrific upset, and they won’t be the last. Panic may have set in after Tennessee football lost 38-30 to the Georgia State Panthers Saturday in a game that wasn’t even that close. But things can always get better.

Although the criticism and anger is valid, and although Jeremy Pruitt’s seat got red-hot overnight, the season is not over. There is historical precedence for teams having very good seasons with horrible upset losses in the middle of them.

In fact, many of these teams had seasons UT fans would kill for this year and would have killed for even before what happened on Saturday.  Given that fact, Tennessee football is far from needing to quit on the season.

Because of what happened on Saturday, we’re going to try to bring some hope to Vol Nation. This post will take a look at some notable other programs who had very bad losses and managed to still be happy about the way their season unfolded.

Some of these teams may actually have a connection to the Vols that make the storyline more compelling. We picked a couple of them specifically because of that, which will make this entire breakdown a bit more entertaining.

All of them, however, suffered historic upset losses within the landscape of college football. In fact, the upsets were worse than what UT suffered Saturday. But they all rebounded to have solid finishes. Even if the upset overshadowed their season, the finish was still very good.

So this is where Vol fans can look to if they want any sort of encouragement. In some cases, the loss put the head coach of the team on the hot seat just like the Vols’ loss on Saturday has done with Pruitt. But that coach rebounded in a big way.

Let’s go ahead and name who they are. Maybe this is the encouragement the program needs. These are five historic FBS teams Tennessee football can look to who suffered horrific upset losses to have very good seasons.

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