From Stewart Mandels mailbag with the Athletic when asked if he ever sees Tennessee being a top 10 program again after how bad the last decade plus has been.
Yes, I have witnessed something similar. Allow me to familiarize you with Oklahoma Sooners football during the decade between Barry Switzer’s departure (1989) and Bob Stoops’ out-of-nowhere national championship in his second season (2000). Over 11 seasons, OU — which holds a .724 all-time winning percentage, sixth-best nationally — went 68-55-3. Though slightly better than Tennessee’s 67-70 mark in its past 11 seasons, the Sooners’ dark years at one point included five consecutive non-winning seasons, including a 3-8 mark in 1996 and 4-8 in ’97.
Fun fact: I sat in the stands at Soldier Field for the 1997 Pigskin Classic, in which Northwestern beat Oklahoma 24-0 and not a single person in the stadium considered the result surprising. Even worse for the Sooners, that Northwestern team went on to finish 5-7.
Then Stoops arrived, and the rest is history.
So yes, I absolutely think Tennessee can get back to being a Top 10 team. The school’s got all the fan support and resources you need to build a powerhouse program, it’s just made some staggeringly bad coaching hires over the past decade. Just like Oklahoma did in the ’90s with Howard Schnellenberger (who, like Lane Kiffin, lasted just one season) and John Blake (12-22 in three seasons).
The counterpoint I’ve heard from some — including my podcast co-host — is that Tennessee will never return to glory either because it has to recruit out-of-state against Georgia and Clemson, both of which are in a much loftier place than when Phil Fulmer was winning in Knoxville. To which I’d say, the state of Oklahoma is not exactly teeming with elite football prospects, and Stoops had to recruit against peak-Mack Brown in the state of Texas. He did alright.
The more interesting “can they ever get back?” subject is Nebraska, which, at its peak, was the most dominant program in the entire sport but has not won a conference championship in 20 years and is coming off consecutive 4-8 seasons. I absolutely believe Scott Frost will have the Huskers winning double-digit games and Big Ten West titles by 2020 at the latest, but can Nebraska — with zero geographic advantages and its history defined by a no-longer en vogue offense — get back to the same heights as former rival Oklahoma today?
If you ask me which program is more likely to win a national championship in the next decade, Nebraska or Tennessee, I’d still take the Vols, even without yet knowing whether Jeremy Pruitt will prove to be the next Kirby Smart or the next Derek Dooley. It can still recruit Top 10 classes every year; Nebraska cannot.
