Tennessee football: Five seasons Vols made bowl despite losing record entering Halloween
2. 2009
Record on Halloween: 3-4 (1-3); Final record: 7-6 (4-4)
Peach Bowl vs. No. 12 Virginia Tech Hokies (Lost 37-14)
One year before Derek Dooley took over a wounded program, Tennessee football had another tease of a year that seemed to signal a turnaround. And it was the infamous Lane Kiffin year that, if anything else, was entertaining. And the splash of the season was what Kiffin did on Halloween.
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UT was 3-4 at the time and playing the No. 21 ranked South Carolina Gamecocks on Halloween night. However, despite the losing record as the sun came up that day, they had some momentum. It was similar to 2015. The Vols had started off the season 2-3 with home losses to the UCLA Bruins and Auburn Tigers and a road loss to the Florida Gators.
But just like 2015, they and starting quarterback Jonathan Crompton seemed to have a turnaround against the Georgia Bulldogs at home, dominating 45-16 to get to 3-3. Then they lost to the eventual national champion Alabama Crimson Tide on the road, just like 2015, off a blocked field goal. Finally, like 2015, they had a game on Halloween that they entered with a 3-4 record.
Momentum was high, though, with those two games. And in the spirit of the holiday, Kiffin shocked the world by bringing the Vols out in black jerseys and orange pants. They took that momentum to force a bunch of early S.C. turnovers to win 31-13. And that started a turnaround just like 2015, but this one was not as good.
Down the stretch of the season, the Vols still suffered a couple of bad losses. One was on the road to the Ole Miss Rebels, and the other was a blowout Peach Bowl loss on New Year’s Eve in the Georgia Dome, the building that cursed them the whole decade.
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But they still had dominant wins over the Memphis Tigers and Vanderbilt Commodores and a thrilling overtime win over the Kentucky Wildcats to make sure that, despite being 3-4 on Halloween, they would finish with a winning record. Kiffin’s departure days after the season ended, though, undid all the momentum they had.