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Dysfunction to delight: Tennessee fans enjoying wild ride back to prominence
By Mark Nagi
Published:
On National Signing Day 2020, then-Tennessee AD Phillip Fulmer proclaimed, “The Vols are back … before long we’ll be taking a bite out of everybody we play’s ass.”
Well, it didn’t quite work out that way. His pick for coach, Jeremy Pruitt, went 3-7 the following season during COVID. Making matters much worse, it turns out that Pruitt couldn’t follow NCAA rules. He and his staff were guilty of widespread recruiting violations, prompting Pruitt’s firing and Fulmer’s cough, cough retirement. It was yet another dark time in what was more than a decade of dysfunction on The Hill.
Ever since Lane Kiffin’s midnight run to Southern California in January 2010, Tennessee could rarely get anything right. The hiring of Derek Dooley was a de facto death penalty. Butch Jones seemed more concerned with PR than winning games. The cluster surrounding what would become known as “Schiano Sunday” will be remembered for eternity as the blueprint for how not to conduct a coaching search. Plus, Pruitt. Inexplicable losses and coaching decisions that defied reality defined those eras. Tennessee lost a game with 13 men on the field (2010, LSU) and lost a game when their opponent had way too many men on the field (2010, UNC). They gave up 63-yard pass plays in the final moments to lose at Florida in 2015 and 2017. And for the love of all that is holy, never kick a FG from the 1-yard line (2015, Oklahoma).
And there was much, much more. The demise of Bruce Pearl. The “vetting” of Donnie Tyndall. The Title IX lawsuit. I could go on and on.
Those were the bad times.
Fast forward to the present day, and things are very different around Tennessee athletics, and especially Josh Heupel‘s football program. The Vols have won 30 games over the past 3 years. They’ve beaten rivals Florida and Alabama each twice during that timespan, something that hadn’t happened since the early to mid-2000s. And the icing on the cake is the Vols earning a spot in the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff. They’ll play Ohio State in the opening round on Saturday night in Columbus.
The Buckeyes are favored by 7.5 points, via FanDuel Sportsbook. Regardless of whether the Vols beat the Buckeyes, it is obvious that Tennessee is no longer an afterthought. Even though they are playing in a newly bloated conference, going 10-2 with an SEC schedule is no joke. Tennessee fans, yearning for success, are all-in. The season ticket waiting list is now over 20,000. Donations to the athletics department and the university are greatly outperforming expectations. The future is indeed bright on Rocky Top.
And it isn’t just football success. The men’s basketball team made it to the Elite 8 a year ago and is currently ranked No. 1 in the country. The women’s basketball team is undefeated and back in the national rankings under new coach Kim Caldwell. The softball team is the 2-time defending SEC champion. And Tennessee’s baseball team swept the SEC Tournament and College World Series last season. In fact, every Tennessee team, all 20 of them, made it to the postseason during the 2023-2024 academic year. Eleven of those teams finished in the top 10 nationally. UT placed 3rd in the country in the Learfield Directors’ Cup standings. I could go on and on.
These are the good times.
During Tennessee’s glory days of the 1990s, Tennessee really had it rolling. Football won 3 SEC championships and the 1998 national title, baseball got to a College World Series and Lady Vols hoops won 4 national titles. But from top to bottom, UT athletics has never been in a stronger position than it is right now.
The reality is that the good times never last forever. When Fulmer’s football team went 45-5 from 1995-1999, it felt like they’d always be big winners. Heck, think about Nebraska 1980s and ’90s. Once the Cornhuskers started their fall in the early 2000s, they haven’t finished a season ranked higher than 14th nationally.
I’m sure that most Tennessee fans are enjoying this ride for all it’s worth.
And they hope football can keep the wheels moving for this season’s ride a few more weeks.
Mark Nagi has covered Tennessee athletics for over 20 years. He is the author of “Decade of Dysfunction,” an in-depth look at all that led to the crazy coaching search of 2017 at Tennessee. The book is available on Amazon.
