All for Tennessee
Fansided

Tennessee football: Vols 10 best wins against religious schools

By Caleb Calhoun

Aaron Hayden #24, Running Back for the University of Tennessee Volunteers runs the ball during the NCAA Southeastern Conference college football game against the University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish on 9 November 1991 at the Notre Dame Stadium in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States. The Tennessee Volunteers won the game 35 - 34. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Allsport/Getty Images)
Aaron Hayden #24, Running Back for the University of Tennessee Volunteers runs the ball during the NCAA Southeastern Conference college football game against the University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish on 9 November 1991 at the Notre Dame Stadium in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States. The Tennessee Volunteers won the game 35 - 34. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Allsport/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
1 of 11
Next
Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Allsport
Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Allsport /

When Tennessee football faces the BYU Cougars, they’ll be looking to beat a Christian school. Here are other similar memorable wins for the Volunteers.

Despite the history of the two programs, Tennessee football will face the BYU Cougars for the first time ever this Saturday at Neyland Stadium. Also, despite their history, they will both be desperately looking to turn around their seasons after 0-1 starts.

In the Vols’ case, it was a horrendous 0-1 start, as they fell to the Georgia State Panthers in an embarrassing upset loss. On the other side, BYU lost in the Holy War to the Utah Utes, but that was an expected loss to a Power Five team on the road.

So Tennessee football enters this game with a bit more desperation. And as they get set to play the Mormon University, they are going to need to be the ones that have the faith, and they will need the mercy from the football gods.

Can they get that mercy against a religious school? Well, it’s happened before. The Vols have played plenty of games against religious schools in the past, and many times it seems like the higher powers were on their side. Ahead of their first matchup with BYU, we’re going to look back on some of those wins.

To qualify as a religious school, it has to be governed by the official religious body it represents. For instance, the Vanderbilt Commodores and Duke Blue Devils are affiliated with the Methodists and were founded by Methodists, but they have autonomous governing bodies. So they don’t count as religious schools.

As we know, BYU is not the most famous religious institution in FBS play. And the two only candidates to be as famous or more famous have both suffered defeats at the hands of Rocky Top, so winning Saturday would give the Vols the trifecta of key victories over religious schools.

Before looking ahead to that game, though, let’s look back. This is the time the religious schools were forsaken by their higher power in favor of UT. Here are Tennessee football’s 10 best wins against religious schools.

Home/Vols Football