Tennessee football: Five facts about Vols facing Indiana in Gator Bowl

4. It’s the Vols’ seventh trip and Indiana’s first trip to the Gator Bowl.

While Tennessee football has played the Indiana Hoosiers only once, the Vols are very familiar with the Gator Bowl. They have made six Gator Bowl appearances in the past, their most recent one being back during the 2014 season. Joshua Dobbs led the Vols to a 45-28 victory over the Iowa Hawkeyes in that one for UT to finish 7-6, their first winning season in four years.

That was Butch Jones’s second season on the job. Other notable games for the Vols in the Gator Bowl include them beating the Texas A&M Aggies in the 1957 season under head coach Bear Bryant, his last game with them before going to the Alabama Crimson Tide, and winning the game in Gainesville Peyton Manning’s freshman season back in 1994.

Overall, UT is 4-2 in the Gator Bowl. On the other hand, though, Indiana has never played in the Gator Bowl, or the TaxSlayer Bowl, which is what it was called the last time the Vols played in it. But it goes even deeper for Indiana. This is the first time the Hoosiers have ever played in a Florida bowl game, which the Vols have a long history of playing.

You can see when you break that down how UT and Indiana could have only played each other once in their history. It’s kind of odd that Indiana, playing in the Big Ten, has never played in a Florida bowl game.