Tennessee football: Ranking every Vols team in 2010s decade

There were many bad, a few mediocre and some rare good Volunteers teams from 2010 to 2019. Here is how all 10 Tennessee football seasons stack up.

Note: This is part of a series of posts recapping the decade for Tennessee football, Tennessee basketball, Tennessee women’s basketball and other Tennessee Vols-related topics.

It was the first decade since the early 1900s that saw Tennessee football suffer through four straight losing seasons. Multiple times, the Vols suffered at least two straight years without a bowl game, at one point going three straight years.

Such a decline for this program had not been seen since the mid-1970s when it transitioned from Bill Battle to Johnny Majors. The crazy part, though, is this program still had some talent. Even through all these struggles, Rocky Top continue to be well-represented in the NFL, and it produced quite a bit of individually recognized talent.

Offenses broke records in certain years. Of course they were historically bad in other years, as was the defense. Individual players went down in the record books in numerous ways. So what caused the struggles for UT?

Well, that’s a story on its own. In this post, we’re going to look at all the teams from this past decade and see how they stack up against each other. This ranking will take into account the success of each team, but it will also analyze the competency of the coaching staff and the actual talent and experience. Schedule strength will play a role as well.

Taking all of that into account, we’ve figured out a way to rank ever team in the 2010s. Sure, the 2019 Vols have one game left to play, but it’s in 2020, and we already know where they belong. So let’s look at where everybody else stands. This is our ranking of all 10 Tennessee football teams this decade.