How did the 1999 team not make it back to the National Championship game?

#101
#101
bamawriter said:
Are you saying this under a hypothetical that UT might have performed differently within the context of the playoff race, or are you saying that they might have made the CFP within the exact same contexts of each of those seasons?
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I'm 36 and didn't start paying attention until the mid 90s so I can't really speak to anything prior to that. From that point on though I think the only years we'd have 100% gotten in were 95, 97, and 98. 1999 would have been unlikely but not out of the realm of possibility. A 2 loss team would've gotten in (UT, Bama, and Wisconsin) so it's possible but unlikely. All those other years he mentioned (from 95 on) UT wouldn't have gotten in.
 
#102
#102
Rickyvol77 said:
Fulmer had to had been as frustrated against Florida as any UT fan as well...the "modern series" was so different compared to any other for UT

1990 - crushed highly ranked Florida at home
1991 - competitive game in Swamp until late surge by Florida
1992 - crushed highly ranked Florida at home
1993 - lost a close one on the road due to DEFENSE
1994 - Florida was simply a much better team vs our injured worn-down team from the schedule
1995 - Manning had great game and Fulmer had great gameplan to dominate in Swamp, but turnovers and defensive breakdown cost them everything
1996 - UT was definitely tighter and had more pressure to win, once florida completed 4th and 11 for TD, it was a hit in the mouth and although UT played back into it, it was over
1997 - UT played decent, but this was on the coaches, not playing Jamal Lewis, and Florida's defense played nasty
1998 - UT wanted it more and showed it
1999 - UT played a C+ type game and still shouldve won if not for coaching, some questionable late ref calls
2000 - UT dominated the entire game but settled for FGs and lost due to the bad ref call which cost them the SEC east title
2001 - Two great teams, but UT was the better team, and despite the worst game ever by Witten, won the game in the Swamp
2002 - Two rebuilding teams, UT was in it but those rain-soaked turnovers were killers
2003 - Tennessee played harder, especially running the ball and limited mistakes
2004 - Ainge played exceptional for a Freshman, UT got a fortunate call, but still deserved the win
2005 - Urban's first game in the series, defensive struggle, UT had too many missed opportunities on offense
2006 - This one pissed me off, UT was much better and had dominated the game up until the returned TD fumble on Leak which wouldve made it 3 TDs lead called back for a BS penalty
2007 - Florida was the much better team, although UT tried to hang in as long as possible
2008 - Florida simply the better team
2009 - Florida was the better team, although Tennessee hung tough
2010 - Dooley blew this game, Tennessee had a good chance to compete, but turnovers and coaching blew it
2011 - Tennessee again hung tough in Swamp, but Florida was better
2012 - The worst coached game of the Dooley era IMO...those turnovers doomed a likely win
2013 - Florida played harder
2014 - No excuse for UT losing this game, dominated the entire game and got multiple turnovers from Florida, the FG that Florida won by shouldnt have counted as it was snapped after the play clock expired
2015 - Another Butch Jones special, snatched a loss from the jaws of victory, no way we should've lost that game
2016 - Great win but it took the team overcoming bad defensive coaching
2017 - Another game that shouldve been a win for Tennessee, hail mary loss thanks again to Butch
2018/2019 - Florida simply had more talent and depth.

This year should be interesting, but looking back how different would the series be looked at today if UT hangs on and wins the games I bolded and is 17-13 against the Gators?
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This is an excellent recap. I sadly was at every one of those games. It has indeed been tough being a VFL.

Actually kind of funny reading this. That is a pretty good recap of 30 years of late September of my life.
 
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#104
#104
Tnphil said:
Wow...Didn't know that or if I did I forgot.
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I think the Legend covers a lot of that. Not a great passer/decision maker, but had a beautiful deep ball and good arm. Great leader and really good wheels. Managed enough to win us a undefeated Natty, so he's legendary to me too.
 
#105
#105
Rickyvol77 said:
Fulmer had to had been as frustrated against Florida as any UT fan as well...the "modern series" was so different compared to any other for UT

1990 - crushed highly ranked Florida at home
1991 - competitive game in Swamp until late surge by Florida
1992 - crushed highly ranked Florida at home
1993 - lost a close one on the road due to DEFENSE
1994 - Florida was simply a much better team vs our injured worn-down team from the schedule
1995 - Manning had great game and Fulmer had great gameplan to dominate in Swamp, but turnovers and defensive breakdown cost them everything
1996 - UT was definitely tighter and had more pressure to win, once florida completed 4th and 11 for TD, it was a hit in the mouth and although UT played back into it, it was over
1997 - UT played decent, but this was on the coaches, not playing Jamal Lewis, and Florida's defense played nasty
1998 - UT wanted it more and showed it
1999 - UT played a C+ type game and still shouldve won if not for coaching, some questionable late ref calls
2000 - UT dominated the entire game but settled for FGs and lost due to the bad ref call which cost them the SEC east title
2001 - Two great teams, but UT was the better team, and despite the worst game ever by Witten, won the game in the Swamp
2002 - Two rebuilding teams, UT was in it but those rain-soaked turnovers were killers
2003 - Tennessee played harder, especially running the ball and limited mistakes
2004 - Ainge played exceptional for a Freshman, UT got a fortunate call, but still deserved the win
2005 - Urban's first game in the series, defensive struggle, UT had too many missed opportunities on offense
2006 - This one pissed me off, UT was much better and had dominated the game up until the returned TD fumble on Leak which wouldve made it 3 TDs lead called back for a BS penalty
2007 - Florida was the much better team, although UT tried to hang in as long as possible
2008 - Florida simply the better team
2009 - Florida was the better team, although Tennessee hung tough
2010 - Dooley blew this game, Tennessee had a good chance to compete, but turnovers and coaching blew it
2011 - Tennessee again hung tough in Swamp, but Florida was better
2012 - The worst coached game of the Dooley era IMO...those turnovers doomed a likely win
2013 - Florida played harder
2014 - No excuse for UT losing this game, dominated the entire game and got multiple turnovers from Florida, the FG that Florida won by shouldnt have counted as it was snapped after the play clock expired
2015 - Another Butch Jones special, snatched a loss from the jaws of victory, no way we should've lost that game
2016 - Great win but it took the team overcoming bad defensive coaching
2017 - Another game that shouldve been a win for Tennessee, hail mary loss thanks again to Butch
2018/2019 - Florida simply had more talent and depth.

This year should be interesting, but looking back how different would the series be looked at today if UT hangs on and wins the games I bolded and is 17-13 against the Gators?
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Nice legwork. If Tennessee wins all of the bolded games, then yes, we'd actually have the lead in the series. I think that's a little aggressive - winning each and every one of those bolded games would have required having all the breaks go our way, which is unrealistic, but Tennessee definitely should have won some of the games you highlighted.

The series during the Fulmer/Spurrier overlap years should have been pretty much even. Phil then got the better of Zook for his 3 years, which would have given Tennessee a slight edge. Urban was going dominate Tennessee almost no matter what; the 2005 and 2006 games could have gone either way but there's no way Tennessee should have won any of the next 4 until Urban left. The series post-Urban should have resulted in a slight edge to Florida, not total domination by them. Florida has not been "up" by any stretch post-Urban but Tennessee has been such a mess they should still have an edge. Since 1990, Florida should be better than Tennessee in this series by a handful of games. It should be more like 17-13 Florida, not 23-7 Florida.

What chaps my ass more than anything else in the series is that the relative strength of the programs doesn't seem to matter in this matchup. When both programs are up, they almost always win. When both programs are down, they almost always win. You'd think that years where the programs are evenly matched would be roughly 50/50, but they aren't remotely close to that. When Florida is up (or at least OK) and Tennessee is down, they win. And there's only been a very brief period time when Florida was down and Tennessee was in pretty good shape (the Zook era). And Zook still managed to win 1 of the 3 games.

Also, and I think this is lost on non-Tennessee people because Florida owned Phil, but Phil routinely had more talent on the field than Spurrier did. It was never by some overly-wide margin, and there were some years where it was probably even, but I don't think in any single year Spurrier had more talent than Phil. He was a way savvier coach/tactician though.
 
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#106
#106
PlanetVolunteer said:
Yeah, but how could the coaches let that happen?
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SEC Revenge + Spoiler Road + Defending NC Champs Game without Al Wilson... Arkansas also won every home game that year. That’s a lot going against a team that should have lost to the same team the year before at home.

That said, while I felt like the 1999 team was just as good of a team as the ‘98 team, we squeaked out some games in ‘98, do there was a lot of work to do in ‘99 to get it done again.

I look at 2001 and both games we dropped were at home. Stephens only ran for 37 yards against LSU. That is why we lost that game. We beat georgia badly on the ground game. Passing was even. They just stopped us more time and had one huge punt return for 69 yards and another for 20+. That will do it.
 
#107
#107
vegasvolfan said:
SEC Revenge + Spoiler Road + Defending NC Champs Game without Al Wilson... Arkansas also won every home game that year. That’s a lot going against a team that should have lost to the same team the year before at home.

That said, while I felt like the 1999 team was just as good of a team as the ‘98 team, we squeaked out some games in ‘98, do there was a lot of work to do in ‘99 to get it done again.

I look at 2001 and both games we dropped were at home. Stephens only ran for 37 yards against LSU. That is why we lost that game. We beat georgia badly on the ground game. Passing was even. They just stopped us more time and had one huge punt return for 69 yards and another for 20+. That will do it.
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Al Wilson has said multiple times that in his opinion the 1997 team was better than the 1998 team. I definitely think you can make an argument that the 2001 team was better than the 1998 team too.

The 2001 squad was so stacked, especially on paper. We had an Alabama-like draft class in the 2002 Draft. 3 defensive linemen were selected within the first 80 picks, including 2 (Henderson and Haynesworth) selected within the first 15.

2001 Tennessee Volunteers football team - Wikipedia
 
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#108
#108
vegasvolfan said:
SEC Revenge + Spoiler Road + Defending NC Champs Game without Al Wilson... Arkansas also won every home game that year. That’s a lot going against a team that should have lost to the same team the year before at home.

That said, while I felt like the 1999 team was just as good of a team as the ‘98 team, we squeaked out some games in ‘98, do there was a lot of work to do in ‘99 to get it done again.

I look at 2001 and both games we dropped were at home. Stephens only ran for 37 yards against LSU. That is why we lost that game. We beat georgia badly on the ground game. Passing was even. They just stopped us more time and had one huge punt return for 69 yards and another for 20+. That will do it.
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We lost the SEC title to LSU in 2001 for three reasons only:

- we relaxed as a team after getting up 17-7 instead of going for the kill
- we had the nation's leading rusher and we passed 4 straight times on the 5 yd line for no gain
- Donte Stallworth had a terrible fumble in the 4th which ended our chance for comeback
 
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#111
#111
Rickyvol77 said:
We lost the SEC title to LSU in 2001 for three reasons only:

- we relaxed as a team after getting up 17-7 instead of going for the kill
- we had the nation's leading rusher and we passed 4 straight times on the 5 yd line for no gain
- Donte Stallworth had a terrible fumble in the 4th which ended our chance for comeback
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I think you can add Nick Saban as LSU head coach in there too.
 
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#115
#115
Offset Eye said:
Regarding Arkansas in '98, there was a play before the Stoerner fumble in which Arkansas was punting and the ball was snapped over the punter's head. The punter ran back and kicked the ball off the ground and through his own endzone. This resulted in a Safety and Arkansas then kicked off to UT.

I always thought the the correct rule was illegal kicking, which would have instead resulted in a possession turnover to UT at half the distance to the goal. Can any rules expert confirm the correct call? Had that been the ruling, it likely would have negated the importance of the Stoerner fumble (assuming it still played out that way in the end).
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Not a rules expert, but I knew it was wrong at the time. It was decidedly unclucky. Here's an article that tells about it:

Here's Why Refs Dropped Ball in Tennessee-Arkansas Game
 
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#117
#117
VaBornVol said:
A better question might be how did the 97 team not win it all?
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The 1995 team was better. Lost one game and destroyed an Ohio State team that had been ranked #1 all year and had the Heisman, the Lombardi, and Biletnikoff winners. That team would have been in the play offs and would have had a chance to win it all.
 
#118
#118
uhhh correct me if I am wrong but losing to Florida was the reason. Simple if they run a decent play intsead of toss sweep on 4th and 3 they win the game and the SEC. I dont know why we are having this discussion.
 
#119
#119
thehardknoxlife said:
Spurrier, Arkansas had revenge on their mind, and Nebraska was just better, arguably the best team in the country at that time.

The real question is how the 2001 team doesn't win a NC.
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It’s called the Miami Hurricanes. The 2001 Canes would have beaten us by 21+. It would have been a slaughter.
 
#122
#122
PlanetVolunteer said:
I'm just wanting to pick the brain of some older folks here. I was five then.

I'm watching the Wyoming game and seeing all these NFL players all over the field. Tee Martin dropping dimes. Jamal Lewis and Travis Henry look ridiculous. Defense has unreal speed and talent.

How did we screw that up and lose three games?
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Two reasons are no Al Wilson, and no Peerless Price. Third is Randy Sanders rather than David Cutlcliff.
 
#124
#124
livefaith said:
View attachment 276820
Revenge.

I give that guy a lot of credit. He had a huge game in 98, minus 1 little mishap. LOL. But, as much crap as he took for 98', he and the Razorbacks screwed our season in 99'. It could a been us and Toothlessville in the seccg too.
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While we are talking about the Hogs. Great movie about Brandon Burlsworth now on Netflix. What a class guy. A guy that vol fans are very familiar with.
If you haven't watched it check out "Greater" I thought it blew away Blindside
 
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