Tennessee football: Ranking Vols six past Gator Bowl games by memorability

On Jan. 2, Tennessee football will face the Indiana Hoosiers for its seventh Gator Bowl. Here are the other six times the Volunteers played there.

There’s an interesting history with Tennessee football and the Gator Bowl. From Peyton Manning playing in Gainesville to beating Bear Bryant to the switch of a coach from the Vols to their opponent, Rocky Top has been part of lots of twists in this Florida bowl game.

Through it all, they have won four and lost two of them. So the history is more good than bad as well, and maybe that bodes well for them getting set to play in their seventh Gator Bowl. After all, finishing this season 8-5 given the way they started would be another notable storyline.

Simply put, Tennessee football has a chance to add to what has already been an incredible turnaround, and that means the Gator Bowl this year gives them another opportunity to create more history. How has that worked out in previous Gator Bowl appearances?

Well, in this post, that’s what we’re going to break down. We’ll be taking a look at the Vols’ previous trips to Florida and how they fared in each game. A part of this post we’ll go into detail as to why each game was important.

As a result, we’ll be ranking all the games by how memorable they were. Now, the memorability of the games did not always work out in UT’s favor, but they were still unforgettable within the scope of college football history nonetheless.

When we dive into this list, you’ll notice its odd for such a regular bowl game that often times features unranked teams to have such unique contributions to college football history. Maybe the Vols and Indiana Hoosiers can add to that.

But how did those contributions apply? In what ways do they relate to Rocky Top? Let’s break all of that down here. These are all six Gator Bowl games ranked by memorability that Tennessee football has played in.