How Tennessee football QBs who won starting job midseason performed the next year

244-of-380; 2,954 yards; 22 TDs; 4 INTs; 5 rush TDs

Welcome to the year that marked the emergence of Tennessee football’s best run of the modern era. Peyton Manning was inserted into the starting lineup as a true freshman in 1994 thanks to a wave of injuries, first suffered by Jerry Colquitt and then Todd Helton.

Despite expecting to redshirt, Manning took over with the Vols 1-3 and set to face the No. 1 defense in the nation in the No. 17 ranked Washington State Cougars. He helped them win that game 10-9, and they then went on a run of winning seven of their final eight games, only losing a heartbreaker to an Alabama team that would finish the regular season undefeated.

The next year, Manning took his greatness to another level. He opened the season with a 27-7 win over the East Carolina Pirates and then led the Vols on a game-winning drive to beat Georgia 30-27. After his defense cost him by giving up 41 points in the second half in a 62-36 loss at Florida, he finally began to emerge.

Manning led the Vols to 52 points against the Mississippi State Bulldogs, 31 points against the Oklahoma State Cowboys and 49 points at the eventual SEC West champion Arkansas Razorbacks, the game that put him on the national map.

A week later, he ended what was at the time a nine-year winless streak against Alabama, beating them 41-14. That burst the modern era of the Vols open, and they won out, capping things off with an epic Citrus Bowl win over the Ohio State Buckeyes and Heisman Trophy winner Eddie George to finish 11-1 and in the top three of both polls.

Before 2002, Casey Clausen paralleled Manning. Both were inserted as starters in the middle of their freshman seasons and led Tennessee football to 11-win seasons and top five finishes as sophomores. However, Manning continued the upward trajectory the Vols were on after that, and they began to slide under Clausen the next year.