Tennessee football: Vols position similar to only time they won in Missouri

Only once in history has Tennessee football beaten the Mizzou Tigers in Columbia, Mo. The Volunteers are in a position similar to that season.

When the Missouri Tigers joined the SEC in 2012, nobody foresaw Tennessee football losing five of seven to them. But that’s been the case, and their last two games against them have both been 50-17 losses. Their first loss to them in 2012 got Derek Dooley fired, even if it didn’t happen until the next week. Butch Jones was fired the next day in 2017.

Anyway, Rocky Top is 1-2 in Columbia, Mo. They’ll be looking to move to .500 there when the two schools face off on Saturday. And the good news for Rocky Top is that they are in a similar position to the last time they won there.

UT’s sole win at Missouri was back in 2015. They had an extremely disappointing 2-3 start to the season, but by the time they traveled to Mizzou, they were 5-4 on the year and on a three-game winning streak. Their turnaround was a huge comeback win to beat the Georgia Bulldogs. At the time, they seemed like a program on the rise under Jones.

In this instance, Tennessee football started 1-4. They were dead in the water. But they rebounded to get to 5-5, and they once again enter Columbia on a three-game winning streak. They once again seem like a program on the rise, this time under Jeremy Pruitt.

Meanwhile, Missouri is reeling. They are 5-5 just like the Vols, but they are on a four-game losing streak. Everything Barry Odom seemed to build up is now unraveling, and there’s a chance these guys miss out on a bowl game now after entering the top 25 in October.

Believe it or not, they were in a similar situation in 2015. That year, the Tigers started off the season 4-1. But Gary Pinkel’s team unraveled and hit a four-game losing streak. By the time they were set to host the Vols, they were 5-5, just like they are this year.

So yes, there are lots of similarities. Tennessee football’s win in Columbia also happened the year the Mizzou protests happened. Of course, they fell to 5-7 that year, and then Pinkel retired, which opened the door for Odom to take over.

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Meanwhile, the Vols were in the midst of an 11-game winning streak going through 2016 and a six-game winning streak to close out the 2015 season with a 9-4 record and top 25 finish. It was by far the best season of the decade for them, although 2016 was close.

It’s well-documented that Joshua Dobbs led the Vols to their only two good seasons this decade, and he also led them to their only two wins over Mizzou. But in this road game, it was more of a defensive struggle, as the Vols won 19-7. That is certainly the way Jeremy Pruitt’s team has been winning, and it’s how he’d like to beat Missouri on the road this year.

Now, there is one concern. This UT team is also very similar to the 2014 Vols, who also started off really slow and then rebounded. Those guys were 3-5 at one point and turned things around with a huge win over the South Carolina Gamecocks. They got to 5-5 just as they were set to face Missouri, and that year it was in Knoxville, where they lost.

At 5-5 this year with a second-year head coach and three different starting quarterbacks, the Vols are almost identical to that 2014 team. But, to be fair, that 2014 Mizzou team won the SEC East for the second year in a row. This team is just barely staying alive.

Simply put, the similarities aren’t all the way there. But they do exist. And that could provide Tennessee football some hope as they face a program that is 5-2 against them since joining the SEC and 5-1 at home this year.