Tennessee has no Rival

#77
#77
Were it not for VolNation, I'd have gone to my grave laboring under the delusion that Tennessee actually has rivals!
 
#78
#78
Alabama openly states Tennessee as rival and they absolutely hate us. No team has beaten Alabama more times than Tennessee has. So how are we not main rivals?
 
#79
#79
We have tons of rivals...Because we are told that we do! Generations change ...I have an uncle who was a wide receiver here...CPF..Hated Alabama too. When I was old enough to get it, it was Florida... whatever makes the $ in that generation
 
#80
#80
Man - I’m getting old way too fast. It was just yesterday when we had a what nine game streak over Bama and a ten game streak over Georgia both at the same time ? Only team we couldn’t beat was Spurrier.
Looking forward to getting those streaks going again and hanging a good ten year one on Florida too.
 
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#82
#82
Alto1 said:
All the Alabama fans I know realize Tennessee as a rival, if not THE RIVAL
After all, we have beat them more than anyone else has………..
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That's my experience as well. For Alabama, it's Auburn and Tennessee, in that order. But make no mistake, they hate us and look forward to the 3rd Saturday the same way we do.
 
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#83
#83
madbamahater said:
Alabama openly states Tennessee as rival and they absolutely hate us. No team has beaten Alabama more times than Tennessee has. So how are we not main rivals?
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The bandwagon fans try and say we aren’t rivals because it’s been so lopsided since they became fans… OG Bama fans know.. if you know you know 😂
 
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#84
#84
In my life as a UT fan dating back to being a student here in the early '80's, it's always been Alabama as the primary rival and then Florida from the mid '90's and Georgia in recent years. Kentucky has always been the primary basketball rival.
 
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#85
#85
LadyVolette said:
The bandwagon fans try and say we aren’t rivals because it’s been so lopsided since they became fans… OG Bama fans know.. if you know you know 😂
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I know someone who lived in Alabama as a kid and became a Bama fan, who hates Tennessee with the same fervor as Auburn and says that's the way they are raised. They look down on us now because of all the success, but that game is always circled on their schedule.
 
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#86
#86
Nationdom said:
TSIO takes a back seat to NO rivalry in College football and Top 5 in all of sports
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I disagree. That is not the way it is seen in the state of Alabama. It is definitely second to the Iron Bowl and in some years third to Bama- LSU. There was a time before the Iron Bowl was renewed in the late 1940’s that TSIO was bigger.
 
#87
#87
VFL-82-JP said:
Bama fans are split. Plenty of them, especially those beyond a certain age, point at Tennessee and the Third Saturday in October. Others, who tend to be a bit younger, look first to the Iron Bowl and Auburn.

There was a time when Vandy was our #1 rival. They were every bit as good as us back then (talking the first 20-30 years we played football). General Neyland flipped the script and we started beating them regularly, and it became too unbalanced to remain much of a rivalry. But it was there at one point. I'm pleased as punch we ruined it by beating them by winning most years.

Kentucky was a hot rivalry for a while, too. We had a trophy and everything (the beer barrel...though for the life of me, I don't understand why smart folks never switched it to a whiskey-bourbon barrel). But then that became too lopsided as well, the rivalry cooled down, and the trophy was retired after a couple of students died in an alcohol-related car accident.

Florida and Georgia are new things. Just since the early 90s have we played them annually. They are, to an extent, manufactured rivalries that will die back down once the SEC does away with divisions (just a couple of years from now).

North Carolina would be a natural rival, and a good one. But they have enough in-state rivals (NC State in football, Duke in basketball), plus being in different conferences it wouldn't easily work.

Virginia Tech would be a decent cross-border rival, as well. But same problems as for North Carolina.

Funny, we're one of only two states in the country that borders 8 other states, plus we have a fellow in-state Power 5 program (even if just barely), and all our rivalries tend to come with an asterisk. Which is why you started this thread.

But I'm perfectly fine with having a lot of rivalries that aren't extreme, rather than one or two that are red hot.

I like where we are, and our history.

Go Vols!
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What other state borders 8 states?
 
#89
#89
OrangeBeachVol said:
Living in Tide Land it depends on who you ask. Another poster said on page 1. Older AL fans will say TN. Younger fans of the last 15 yrs or so will say Auburn. But make no mistake about it, AL fans still love beating TN every yr. They relished our program being a cupcake game for the last 10-12 yrs. Hopefully the wormed has turned now.
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I lived an Alabama in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s and there was a lot of respect for Tennessee but THE game was always the Auburn-Alabama game in a split down the middle Legion Field. The next hardest ticket to get was the Lee-Lanier high school rivalry in Montgomery.
 
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#91
#91
The only program that would have UT as their biggest rival is Vanderbilt.

Ask 10 UT fans who the Vols biggest rival is and you may get 5 different answers.
 
#94
#94
I took op as saying we didn’t have a rivalry where both teams count the other team as their main rival. Which is true. Doesn’t mean we don’t have rivalries.
 
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#95
#95
LadyVolette said:
My former boss was a huge Kentucky fan.. she was psycho with her dislike of UT (I may have hidden my alma mater from her until I knew I was leaving the job)…😳 it was that serious 😂
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I do love wearing my orange to work after a game and seeing the eye rolls I get. Rupp is about 4 miles down the road from me.
 
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#96
#96
Just a thought, but seems like we're headed for a major rivalry with UGA.

Who is their main rival? Ga Tech? They're in the same boat as us with Vandy.

UGA has The cocktail party with UF, but they are not UF's main rival, FSU is. UGA has a permanent cross divisional game with Auburn, but they are not Auburn's main rival, Bama is.

I think UGA's recent success and our recent ascension will lead UGA vs UT as the biggest rivalry game for both of those teams.
 
#100
#100
Lol, it’s funny that you can almost tell the age of someone by who they say is a rival. “Most Bama fans” wouldn’t happen to be the ones that have came on board during the Saban era right? Tennessee was hated during Fulmer’s time here, he had a long winning streak vs them and had turned in them to the NCAA.
 
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