Before the NCAA investigation that got Jeremy Pruitt fired, before the hire of Josh Heupel and before the mass exodus of players in the transfer portal, it’s important not to forget the biggest reason fans turned against Jeremy Pruitt and Heupel inherited such a mess. Tennessee football was in the midst of one of its worst seasons in 2020.
The Vols suffered their 27th losing season in school history and their 16th in the SEC era. We’re not counting 1917 when they went 0-3, as World War I prevented them from fielding a varsity team that year. But where does 2020 stack up against the other years?
Well, in this post, we’re going to break that down. Our official ranking will only involve teams in the SEC era, but before we finish, we’ll name standout teams before the SEC was founded. Only teams that finished with a losing record and didn’t make a postseason game make this list, though. With 2020 in the rearview mirror, these are the 10 worst seasons in Tennessee football history.
10. 1958: 4-6 (4-3)
We were down to the 1958 team and the 5-7 2013 here. The1958 team actually had more quality wins, but the 2013 team beat a top five team in the South Carolina Gamecocks, still beat two teams with a winning record and only lost to one team with a losing record. Six of their seven losses were to teams that had winning records, and five were to top 25 teams.
On the other hand, the 1958 team is marked by inconsistencies. UT beat three teams that were ranked when they played them in the Mississippi State Bulldogs at No. 11, the Ole Miss Rebels at No. 7 and the Vanderbilt Commodores at No. 15. However, they suffered an upset loss to the Chattanooga Mocs.
Meanwhile, MSU and Vandy finished the year unranked. Other losses were to the 5-4-1 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and Kentucky Wildcats along with the 7-4 Florida State Seminoles. None of those teams finished the year ranked. Tennessee football suffered its first losing season under Bowden Wyatt here, and this was the start of a downward slide until Doug Dickey arrived.