Tennessee football: Vols 10 greatest seasons without top 25 finish

4. 1981

8-4 (3-3)

W Garden State Bowl

Yes, Johnny Majors clearly had lots of great seasons in the early and mid 1980s without finishing in the top 25. One of them was 1981, which was the first step in the consistency that Majors was trying to rebuild. Tennessee football had only made one bowl game in Majors’ first four years, and they were coming off his second losing season in those four years here.

Just like 1980, they started 0-2, losing to the Georgia Bulldogs and USC Trojans, but this time they played both teams on the road and got blown out after playing them close the year before. That made them seem even worse. However, they rebounded with a win over the Colorado State Rams and then back to back 10-7 wins over the Auburn Tigers and Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.

At that point, they were 3-2, and then they fell to 3-3 with a 38-19 loss to the Alabama Crimson Tide. But then they got on a roll, winning four of their final five with one upset loss at the Kentucky Wildcats to finish 7-4. That was enough to get them a Garden State Bowl invite, where they would face the Wisconsin Badgers, who had also gone 7-4.

In a solid performance at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., UT built a 21-7 first-half lead en route to a 28-14 win. That was the Vols’ first bowl win since 1974, and it also resulted in them finishing 8-4, which was their first eight-win season since 1973. This also set a run of seven straight bowl appearances and 23 bowl appearances in 24 years.