Tennessee football: Vols top 10 now defunct rivalries in history

2. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

All-time series: Tennessee leads 25-17-2

Years rivalry existed:

• 1954-1973 (Vols record: 12-7-1)
• 1979-1987 (Vols record: 6-2-1)

Before Tennessee football became a rivalry with the Georgia Bulldogs, which didn’t really start until the 2000s, the Vols had a long, historical rivalry with the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. GT was the first national power in the South thanks to John Heisman, and they reached new heights in the mid-20th century under Bobby Dodd, who was UT’s second All-American ever.

Anyway, these two schools first met in 1902 as SIAA members. From that year to 1911, they faced each other eight times, with Georgia Tech winning five of them. However, they wouldn’t meet again until 1946, when both were in the SEC, Robert Neyland had begun his third stint, and Dodd, his protege, was in his second year at Georgia Tech.

After playing four years in the 1940s, the rivalry was absent during Neyland’s final dynasty, but it returned during the Bowden Wyatt days. Wyatt vs. Dodd was the rivalry, and that was the defining game during the Vols’ 10-0 SEC Championship season in 1956, as they beat GT, who would finish 10-1, by a score of 6-0. There were numerous other thrillers through GT joining the ACC.

Johnny Majors restored the rivalry in 1979, and it carried into 1987. The two wouldn’t meet again until 2017, when the Vols would pull off one of the luckiest wins of all time, only to see their season collapse to a 4-8 record and their first winless SEC campaign in school history.