Tennessee football: Ranking every Vols team in 2010s decade

2. 2016

9-4 (4-4)

Won Music City Bowl; No. 22 AP; No. 24 Coaches

This was supposed to be the best season of the decade for Tennessee football. It certainly had the highest expectations. After the 2014 7-6 campaign, the Vols had another top five recruiting class and had their best season since 2007 in 2015. Then they were set to return everybody for the second straight year. Butch Jones had built up the program.

As a result, UT entered the season in the top 10 with a senior quarterback in Joshua Dobbs. Alvin Kamara returning, Larry Scott coming on to coach tight ends and Bob Shoop, the most highly-touted defensive coordinator, picking the Vols were all reasons for the high expectations. But things started out rocky.

The Appalachian State Mountaineers gave the Vols a scare, jumping out to a 13-3 lead. UT needed bad field goal kicking from them and overtime to win, and they won in overtime because Jalen Hurd recovered a Joshua Dobbs fumble in the end zone for a touchdown.

After a 20-13 overtime win, they beat the Virginia Tech Hokies 45-24 in the Battle at Bristol despite a 14-0 first quarter deficit. Then they scored an ugly 28-19 win over the Ohio Bobcats. At this point, the question arose iif this team was the opposite of the team the previous year, which blew leads in all four losses. Had they learned how to win now? Did deficits not phase them?

We got our answer the next week. After falling behind 21-0 to the Florida Gators, who had an 11-game winning streak over them and won three of those games with fourth quarter comebacks while down by two scores, including a major comeback the previous year, UT scored 38 unanswered points.

They were down 21-3 at halftime and made it 21-10. But in the fourth quarter, they scored touchdowns on four straight drives. In that time, Florida didn’t even get one first down. The Vols erased years of frustration with a 38-28 win.

One week later, they outdid themselves, coming back from 17-0 down to beat the Georgia Bulldogs 34-31 thanks to a 43-yard Hail Mary from Dobbs to Jauan Jennings with no time left. At this point, Tennessee football was 5-0, in the top 10, and on an 11-game winning streak. They were at their peak.

But then the luck ran out. Seven turnovers resulted in a road overtime loss the next week to the Texas A&M Aggies. All the injuries that were plaguing them, including losing Jalen Reeves-Maybin, Cam Sutton and Hurd, caught up with them. They then got blown out by the Alabama Crimson Tide 49-10 with a makeshift offensive line.

Still, the East was in play. But after a bye, then it wasn’t. The Vols suffered an upset loss at the South Carolina Gamecocks. Everything Butch Jones built began to unravel. UT got back to 8-3, but with a shot at a New Years Six Bowl bid, they lost to the Vanderbilt Commodores. Jones’s seat began to heat up. He made things worse with his “Champions of Life” comment.

A win over the Nebraska Cornhuskers in the Music City Bowl salvaged things a bit. But UT was still 9-4, the same as a year ago, and failed to win the East despite being favored to and entering the season in the top 10. After that 5-0 start, the bottom fell out, and it continue into the next year, when they went 4-8.