Tennessee football’s 10 toughest records to break

5. Tee Martin: 24 conescutive completions

1998 vs. Alabama Crimson Tide (1); at South Carolina Gamecocks (23)

We’re back to a record that is just too tough to break. Other quarterbacks, to be fair, have broken Tee Martin’s record since then, but this was an NCAA record at the time, and in the SEC, with such loaded defenses, topping this record seems even tougher. Nobody in the league will be as bad as the South Carolina Gamecocks were then. They were in the midst of a 21-game losing streak.

Martin, in Tennessee football’s 1998 national championship season, completed 24 straight passes over the course of two games. He completed his final pass in the game against he Alabama Crimson Tide, which sent the Vols to 6-0 for the first time since 1969 and remains the last time they started 6-0, and he then hit 23 straight on Halloween at South Carolina.

This is a record that could have been extended, as Martin’s final pass at South Carolina was dropped by David Martin. Had Martin caught that, the streak could have extended into the next week against the UAB Blazers, and there’s a chance that martin could still have the NCAA record. Aaron Rodgers, however, has it now with 26 straight. He only tied Martin’s 23 straight in a game.

Rodgers did it against the USC Trojans in 2004. Beyond FBS, Quinn Epperly of the Princeton Tigers completed 29 straight passes in 2013. However, neither of them plays in the SEC, and Martin’s stat line is likely to remain an SEC record. All due respect to those other guys, nobody could do that against today’s SEC defenses.