volbound1700
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I keep hearing about the 1 out of 17 but I noticed that Florida was heavily favored or higher ranked in most of those matchups.
I know 2002 is one exception but I don't see many matchups were we are favored like we are now.
This. Also, out of the 16/17 we weren’t even consistently beating Vandy, Kentucky, Mizzou or South Carolina those years. Everyone noticed we kept losing to the big 3, and rightfully so. But no one mentioned that we lost to the other teams quite a bit as well.
They had better coaching in all the years except Zook’s tenure as well. Now we have the better team and a much better offensively-minded coach. Our coach has a reputation for blowing out defenses. Theirs has a reputation of winning by 7 or less. Somehow this team and coach has put my chronic BVS in remission.Since 1990, I believe UT was ranked higher in 90, 91, 93, 96, 99, 02, 03, 05, 16, 17. They won in 90, 03, 16. So they won 3 out of 10, a few times UT should have won those with the better talent (the Peyton years were particularly painful) and somehow luck or whatever helped UF. Just like last year, if UT was scheduled at the end of the year (like the year before) it would have been a cake walk, but no, UF had to fall apart after the UT game. Nothing surprises me with this series. I remember UT was 20 points underdogs in 01 and won, then lost to Saban in the title game.
Article I just read said it has been 50 years since we were favored by 10+ points.Not sure if this is true, but I heard on a podcast that Tennessee has never been favored by double digits in this game.
The fact we were favored in '12, '14, and '15 says a lot about the falloff of Florida as a national power, because we were either pretty bad or really young in addition to being poorly coached in all of those seasons.In the last 20 years Tennessee has been favored to win 6 times.
2002 (-5.5) FL 30 TN 13
2004 (-3.0) FL 28 TN 30
2012 (-3.0) FL 37 TN 20
2014 (-1.0) FL 10 TN 9
2015 (-1.0) TN 27 FL 28
2016 (-5.0) FL 28 TN 38
The fact we were favored in '12, '14, and '15 says a lot about the falloff of Florida as a national power, because we were either pretty bad or really young in addition to being poorly coached in all of those seasons.
2002 was the most miserable game I've ever attended in person, while 2004 was the best game I've ever attended in person.
I hope this year is different, and I understand why a lot of Vol fans are so confident, but at the same time we've invented so many ways of losing to this program I just refuse to get too optimistic.