Vols now tied for longest active bowl winning streak among P5 programs...

[wtmvol]

and tied for 3rd overall. Obviously some caveats to that. Those wins aren't in consecutive years and our degree of difficulty in those isn't nearly as high as teams who have been in NY6 / playoff games. But our 4 wins have all been against the Big 10 - not like we're beating up on Conference USA or anything.

Other odds and ends...

• Syracuse and Minnesota, oddly enough, also have 4 straight wins. Minnesota's 4 straight wins come after 7 straight bowl losses. Syracuse is 13-3 in their last 16 bowl games
• Louisiana Tech has 6 straight bowl wins, in consecutive years. That's pretty impressive.
• Appalachian State is 5-0 in bowl games since making the jump to FBS
• Clemson could make it 4 in a row by beating LSU (4 bowl wins in a 2 year span, not too shabby!)
• Poor Ball State maintains the longest active losing streak at 7 and counting. They've never won a bowl game
• We've now won 5 straight against the Big 10. The only current Big 10 teams we haven't beaten in a bowl are Penn State (0-3), Purdue (0-1), Michigan St (haven't played), and Rutgers (haven't played)
• We're now 29-24 in bowl games, 13-10 against the current Big 10

 

[djohnnyg]

"Hoosiers (8-5) the first team in 472 tries this season to lose a game when up two scores inside five minutes to go", per ESPN Stats & Info.

 

[djohnnyg]

Per ESPN Stats & Info, entering Thursday's game, FBS teams were 0-471 when trailing by at least 13 points in the final 5 minutes of the fourth quarter this season.
Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.
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So give Pruitt credit for getting his troops to do something the 471 previous teams in our position weren't able to do.

 

[cardvolfan]

Even if executed perfectly, the chances of recovering were slim. The Vols have not had a successful onside kick since 2011.