Tennessee football: Where Vols have gone bowling with five or more losses

2. 2009

Bowl game: Chick-fil-A Bowl; Record: 7-5 (4-4)

Opponent: Virginia Tech Hokies (Lost 37-14)

Yes, the one Lane Kiffin year was a five-loss year. Everybody saw this one coming, though. Tennessee football was in rebuilding mode, as Kiffin took over a team that was 5-7 the year before and then unnecessarily overhauled the roster while there. As a result, UT was even more short-handed with Kiffin running things.

Notable about this season was the Vols losing a close game, 12-10 to be exact, to the eventual national champion Alabama Crimson Tide on the road. They also only lost by 10 the Florida Gators, who had Tim Tebow, on the road, and they suffered closes losses to the UCLA Bruins and Auburn Tigers. Their only embarrassment was a 42-17 loss at the Ole Miss Rebels.

However, dominant wins over Mark Richt’s Georgia Bulldogs, Steve Spurrier’s South Carolina Gamecocks and Rich Brooks’s Kentucky Wildcats were highlights to get this team to 7-5. Then they received a Peach Bowl invite to face Frank Beamer’s 9-3 and No. 12 ranked Virginia Tech Hokies.

It was Rocky Top’s fifth trip to the Chick-fil-A Bowl in Atlanta, before this was a College Football Playoff game, and it was known as the Peach Bowl for UT in the other four trips. This one, though, was never pretty.

In the final game of the decade on Dec. 31, 2009, the Vols got dominated. As a result, they finished 7-6 overall. At the time, it didn’t seem like a big deal, as the future looked bright. But that loss, coming in the Georgia Dome, where the Vols had been tortured al decade, was indicative of the frustrating decade to come. And Kiffin bolting for the USC Trojans a few days later started it all.