Most Frustrating Tennessee Loss You Remember?

1. The 1997 loss to Nebraska 17-42 was bad, but had an upside. Many of our offensive & defensive linemen later said that game taught them just how tough and physical you had to be to play with the big boys. They took the lesson to heart, because the following year ...

2. 1966 loss to Bama, 11-10. We'd lost to the Bear 4 years in a row, then tied with them the year previous. Everyone knew this Dickey team would finally beat the Bear again. We took a 10-0 lead, but Bama came back to take an 11-10 lead on a field goal. We marched to their 3 yard line (!) as time expired, needing a field goal of our own to win. But the kick by Gary Wright sailed wide of the mark. From that point on he was always known as 'Wide' Wright. A bitter loss that I listened to on my car radio in Atlanta, where I could only pick up the broadcast from Alabama.
 
There's been so many lol, but when i look back on the most frustrating I have to think of watching the Orange bowl back in ancient times, and Karl Kremser missed a field goal in the closing seconds.

It was the beginning of my learning of the Vol's talent to sometimes snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

I don't recall the year, anyone else here go that far back?
 
2006 losing 21-20 against Florida

2006 losing against LSU on bad fumble call

2007 SEC Championship

2002 losing to LSU in SECCG when a win wouldve gotten us to the national championship
 
The 2001 SECC game against LSU.....A Rose Bowl trip and NC on your finger tips and we let a no-name off-the-bench-QB beat us.....and we never recovered from that loss

Last years 2009 game at Alabama....given zero chance by every expert and we beat them except on the scoreboard. The real pain was we had at least two or three chances to close the deal. And Alabama went on undefeated and won the NC. No other team came close to what we did.
 
2000 UT vs. UF

Tennessee has a lead late in the game 23-20 over Florida. Florida drives down in the red zone. Jesse Palmer throws a pass to Jabar Gaffney. Gaffney "catches" the ball, and it is almost immediately slapped away by a UT cornerback. Ref calls touchdown. Vols lose.

/QUOTE]

remember that one for sure.

This year was ucla game, then auburn, then bama.

Remember the 95 game when Chavis was dc?

If you don't remember which one I won't remind you because it hurts too bad.
 
2000 UT vs. UF

Tennessee has a lead late in the game 23-20 over Florida. Florida drives down in the red zone. Jesse Palmer throws a pass to Jabar Gaffney. Gaffney "catches" the ball, and it is almost immediately slapped away by a UT cornerback. Ref calls touchdown. Vols lose.

2003 (I think) UT vs. UGA

This one is hazy to me, someone clear it up. Tennessee fumbles/throws a pick late in the game and UGA takes it to the house to win
.

Someone might have already cleared this up, but what happened was right before halftime (score 13-7 UGA) UT elected to go for it on 4th down from like the 2, but the Fullback (if I recall correctly) ran right into the handoff and knocked it loose, then UGA picked it up at the like 6 or 8 and ran it 92 yards back for a TD; the game then just went to hell in a handbasket in the second half

but it wasn't a close game lost at the end; it was like a 41-14 final score
 
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One of the many games that Fulmer coached teams quit on the field and the staff coached not to lose by even more points after falling behind.

not quite; after starting off the second half 20-7, UT came out throwing and had to punt;

UGA then drove down the field against the defense again to make it 27-7;

then on the first play clausen threw a pick on his own 20 that got returned to the 5 and UGA plowed it in 3 plays later 34-7;

then on the next drive, Clausen threw another pick on the 20 that 1 play later the UGA RB was able to easily run it in against a gassed def; 41-14 in the 3rd

At that point with any team, it becomes nightmare bad day/game scenario and you're just wanting to get out of there because the game's already soundly decided when the 4th started

If anything, that game was the "Fulmer went for the risk 4th down score in a close game (rather than the safe points) and it horribly blew up in the team's face" game
 
56-20 2007 UF. this was just embarrasing and laid the groundwork for my hate for tebow and also 2005 vandy, and back to back peach bowl losses to maryland and clemson in 02 and 03. thats when i felt like teams stopped being scared to play tennessee. although alabama this past year was probably the most heartbreaking. writing this kinda makes me sad. brings up a lot of bad memories.:confused:
 
I named some games earlier, but it seems that most here think the '01 SECCG is one of the most frustrating games of all time. Well, i look at it as what should have been, a changing of the guard. Fulmer should have hung it up after the '01 season, after we lost to LSU in the SECCG something changed, we used to pull out most of the close games with Fulmer at the helm, unless it was UF. You could smell death in the GA Dome that night. That was the last UT team that was capable of winning it all and we pissed it away to a second string QB who just ran the ball right at us, i remember sitting in the GA dome at halftime up 17-7 thinking 30 more mins. and we are going to the rose bowl to play Miami for the National Title. We stunk up the 2nd half and the rest as they say, is history.

After the game, i find that my truck had been broken into and all of my stuff was gone. Hell of a day for sure.
UT football changed that day, and we have not recovered since.
 
Mine was the game against Penn State in 2007 Outback Bowl. This was the game I realized as long as the current staff remained at Tennessee we would never never win the big games. Foster was tearing it up and we sat him for two quarters, made no adjustments and called that double reverse on our own 25????? Still pisses me off...we out played them, but our coaches still figured out a way to loose. Should have cleaned house that year and hired Saban.....We would have already won another National Championship if Mike Hamilton could have got it done. Look at a the brite side....we would have never hired Kiffy!!!
 
I named some games earlier, but it seems that most here think the '01 SECCG is one of the most frustrating games of all time. Well, i look at it as what should have been, a changing of the guard. Fulmer should have hung it up after the '01 season, after we lost to LSU in the SECCG something changed, we used to pull out most of the close games with Fulmer at the helm, unless it was UF. You could smell death in the GA Dome that night. That was the last UT team that was capable of winning it all and we pissed it away to a second string QB who just ran the ball right at us, i remember sitting in the GA dome at halftime up 17-7 thinking 30 more mins. and we are going to the rose bowl to play Miami for the National Title. We stunk up the 2nd half and the rest as they say, is history.

After the game, i find that my truck had been broken into and all of my stuff was gone. Hell of a day for sure.
UT football changed that day, and we have not recovered since.

Damn, that's like a punch in the gut, then a punch in the nuts while you're still trying to recover from the first shot...:hmm:
 
Both in '01 for me, the UGA game was terrible, but the LSU loss somehow managed to top it just a couple months later.
 
Florida two years ago --> What a spanking

UCLA two years ago --> Three picks in the first half, a backup backup's qb, and still a loss.

Clemson '04 --> #6 UT loses ANOTHER game in Atlanta.
 
yeaaah im going to have to go with the 2000 flordia game but more importantly 2001 sec championship against LSU...LSU was a nobody then and they kicked us out of the national championship...
 
1991 Fiesta Bowl. Whipping Penn State in all statistical categories; come out in the second half and loose something like 42-17. I mean we were controlling the game and whipping them badly. Majors' last game I think.
 
1991 Fiesta Bowl. Whipping Penn State in all statistical categories; come out in the second half and loose something like 42-17. I mean we were controlling the game and whipping them badly. Majors' last game I think.


Majors returned in '92 and wasn't on the sidelines until the 6th game of the season. It was at home in Knoxville and the team was ranked 4th in the nation with the lead in the SEC East (victories against UF and UGA previously). This team showed a special trait early on under CPF as interim coach and they became divided after Majors return and laid an egg against Arkansas.

I remember listening to it on the radio in Memphis at that time. I thought "this is not happening!"
 
The week after we lost to Georgia 43-7. That team wound up being a bowl team after being shellacked 87-7 in it's first 2 games.

I think these sort of defeats are what made ties so appealing to Majors.

Actually, we opened '81 with the 44-0 loss to Jawja and then lost 43-7 to USC the next week. I've always thought they should have just asked us if Herschel or Marcus Allen should have won the Heisman for that season.

Majors said in his book that the '81 team was his favorite team that he coached. As terrible as they looked in those two games, it was a shock they wound up 8-4. As I recall, they were even positioned to get a good bowl invite until they stunk it up and lost to UK. I remember my dad laughing that night when it was announced we had to take the Garden State Bowl. :no:

I really don't remember Johnny playing for ties; a lot of the ones he had were just games that ended up that way, or ones where the other team tied us.

He took the tie against Colorado in 1990, but I agreed with that decision. It was the first game of the year, they were favored, and under those circumstances it was almost as good as winning. The one later on against Auburn was a game where Pat Dye tied us. Pat Dye played for ties a lot...to this day, his name is a four-letter word at Syracuse.
 
To Kentucky......... 25 years ago. Was COLD as heck not to mention miserable when losing to the cats.
 
We gave up in that Fiesta Bowl, that is what is so hard to forget. I was 13 and still remember how we gave up 35 points in one half of football. That year we allowed our opponents to score 42% of their points after the second half kickoff. Poor scheme and complacency? When I saw the SECCG against LSU, I immediately remembered this beatdown. However, Shuler came in as a Frosh and showed an upgrade in athleticism we had longed for at the QB position. Kelly is still my second fave UT QB behind #16 though.
 
Losing to Florida in Chris Leak's senior year... Dallas Baker on the same exact route, twice i believe?
 
1-Giving up 15 in the 4th Q to LSU in the 01 SEC Championship

2-Driving to win and Ainge throws a pic in the 07 SEC Championship

3- Being on a great roll last year ready to win 9 games and a great bowl bid. Made nat'l news with the robbery and got TRASHED by Ole Miss.

Right on dude...in that same order!!! :good!:
 
1. Knocked us out of the NC game.
2. Fulmer was never the same after it
3. Because of 2, we are just now hitting bottom and are looking up to the likes of Saban and Meyer and LSU is still recruiting great!

:cray:
 
keep seeing LSU 01 and yeah but that's not as bad as the '95 loss.

I must not remember correctly that in '95 we would have been undefeated and national champs if not for a 2nd half blowout by danny freakin wuerffle ?

I could of sworn that we led big and he threw for like 5-6 touchdowns in the 2nd half and it was a complete blowout from that point. This was also Chavis' 1st year as DC.

Would someone correct me if my brain is fried? I suppose some of you can't remember because horror and shock will repress memories.
 

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