Tennessee football: Five major obstacles Vols overcame in win at Missouri Tigers

5. Two-game losing streak by Vols at Missouri

This was one mental hurdle the Vols were going to have to overcome before the season even started. One of the most inexplicable facts about the Missouri Tigers ever since they joined the SEC is the way they have dominated Tennessee football, winning five of seven games. It got worse over the past two years.

Mizzou beat the Vols in 2017 50-17 one day before John Currie fired Butch Jones. The next year, UT had gotten to 5-5 with a win over the Kentucky Wildcats. But they fell 50-17 to the Tigers again, this time at home. That mentally wrecked them, as they missed out on a bowl with a loss to the Vanderbilt Commodores the next week.

Two UT coaches have gotten fired with losses to the Tigers. We mentioned that Jones was fired the next day. Well, in 2012, the Vols lost to Missouri in overtime, and Derek Dooley was fired the next week. He coached one more game, a blowout loss to Vanderbilt, but everybody knew he had already been fired with that Mizzou loss.

Simply put, the Vols had to mentally believe they could beat the Tigers. Their only two wins were Joshua Dobbs’s junior and senior seasons. So it was a big deal for them to win this game just so they can begin to even the series and end Missouri’s dominance in the series. The mental toughness it took to put that in the back of their minds is worthy of major praise.