It’s hard to forget the last time Tennessee football started 5-0. The Vols had just beaten the Georgia Bulldogs on the road thanks to the Joshua Dobbs to Jauan Jennings hail mary. That was a week after they came back from 21 down to beat the Florida Gators 38-28, snapping an 11-game losing streak in the series.
Then, the program collapsed. After three and a half years of work to get the Vols to peak at 5-0 that year, Butch Jones saw everything unravel in the course of a month. His team lost three straight and stumbled to 8-4. A year later, the program fell to the worst season since it began SEC play, going 4-8.
Yes, even a 5-0 start is traumatizing to Tennessee football fans. That’s why negativity looms large. However, this 5-0 start is completely different. The Vols are ahead of schedule in this one, team chemistry and health is much better, and the start isn’t as much of a fluke.
Remember, when UT got to 5-0 in 2016, that was the expectation. They started the year ranked in the top 10, ahead of Florida and a Georgia team under a first-year head coach, Kirby Smart. The year before, they had gone 9-4, and they were the favorites to win the East.
This was Jones’ fourth year, and the program was expected to arrive. It’s completely different now. The Vols are in Josh Heupel’s second year, and Heupel inherited a way bigger mess than Jones. As a result, the trajectory of this 5-0 start means a lot more.
That 2016 team had six players taken in the first three rounds of the NFL Draft the following year. Only three players would be candidates to go in the first three rounds of next year’s draft: Hendon Hooker, Cedric Tillman and Byron Young.
Taking these things into account, even if they were to stumble once again to an 8-4 campaign, they would still be in a better position than the 2016 team that did that was. When it happened in 2016, it was a major disappointment. Doing it this year would be hitting par.
However, 8-4 seems much less likely this time around. Don’t get me wrong, the schedule could set up for it, as Tennessee football is likely to lose to the Alabama Crimson Tide and Georgia Bulldogs and then be shocked by the Kentucky Wildcats and South Carolina Gamecocks.
If you pay attention to the team chemistry, though, it’s just different this time around. The Vols were starting to suffer a wave of transfers midseason in 2016. Worse, they were just banged up severely that year, a result of Jones not having a full-time strength coach.
Outside of the secondary, this team is relatively healthy. There are no signs of players wanting to leave like Jalen Hurd did in the middle of 2016. Tennessee football is basically at full strength to continue on, which wasn’t the case by this time six years ago.
Then there’s the start itself. Look, in both case, the Vols beat three Power Five opponents. However, UT looked hideous in its wins in 2016. Remember, they needed overtime to beat the Appalachian State Mountaineers and only beat the Ohio Bobcast by nine.
This year, Rocky Top beat the brakes off the Ball State Cardinals and Akron Zips. Their non-conference Power Five win was against the defending ACC Champion Pittsburgh Panthers on the road. In 2016, it was against the Virginia Tech Hokies, led by first-year head coach Justin Fuente, on a neutral field.
Looking at the teams themselves, yes, both Florida and the LSU Tigers this year have first-year head coaches when only Georgia did in 2016. However, Jim McElwain was incompetent enough to make Florida look like a team playing with a first-year head coach. Also, no hail mary plays were needed to win these games.
Simply put, nothing about this 5-0 start resembles what was going on with Tennessee football in 2016. The Vols are playing this season with house money at this point, and in reality, they are just taking advantage of lots of huge breaks. There are lots of reasons for fans to be more happy about this one.