Florida Football: Tennessee Should No Longer Be Considered A Main Rival (Saturday Smackdown)

As the no. 20 Florida Gators get set to take on the no. 11 Tennessee Volunteers in Knoxville this Saturday, the national media has gone out of its way to hype the game up.

ESPN’s College GameDay made the trip to Knoxville this week with the anticipation of this being another epic chapter in this bitter rivalry.

But what does it mean to be a rival and how does one develop a rivalry?

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary has multiple definitions for the term “rival.”

As a noun, it defines rival as “one of two or more striving to reach or obtain something that only one can possess.”

As a verb, one of the ways it defines the term rival is “to possess qualities or aptitudes that approach or equal (those of another).”

During the 1990s, there were hardly any rivalries as intense in college football as the one between the Florida Gators and Tennessee Volunteers.

While both programs are founding members of the Southeastern Conference whose first game on the gridiron dates all the way back to 1916, it wasn’t until 1990 that they started playing against each other on an annual basis.

Led by two hall of fame head coaches, this annual SEC East showdown generally had both conference and national championship implications on the line throughout the decade.

From 1990 to 2000, Florida and Tennessee combined for nine SEC championships and two national championships.

During that time Florida head coach Steve Spurrier always made it a priority to take jabs at his home-state school.

From calling Vols legend Peyton Manning a “three-time star of the Citrus Bowl” to pointing out that “you can’t spell Citrus without the U-T,” Spurrier always relished every opportunity to be a constant thorn in Tennessee’s side after the Vols chose to not actively recruit him as a quarterback during his playing days in the mid 1960s.

Though Spurrier’s record at Florida against Philip Fulmer’s Tennessee was an impressive 8-4, practically every game between these schools created an exhilarating chapter to this annual rivalry.

In 1997 Peyton Manning returned to Knoxville for his senior season to pull off a perfect season and win a national championship. The Vols wound up falling short on both ends, thanks to a 33-20 defeat at the hands of Florida.

Four years later the Gators were poised late in the season to face the Miami Hurricanes for the BCS national championship. However, due the terrorist attacks earlier that year on September 11, Florida’s game against Tennessee was rescheduled to December 1. Despite Florida holding a two-point lead heading into the 4th quarter, the Vols outscored the Gators 13-9 in the final quarter to earn a spot in the SEC championship and eradicate Florida’s championship aspirations.

Little did anyone know that this would be the final time that both Spurrier and Fulmer would coach against one another in this game, as Spurrier left Florida at season’s end to coach in the NFL.

Almost 21 years later, the landscape of this rivalry has shifted away from national relevance. Mainly due to the decline of Tennessee’s football program.

The Vols have won the SEC East only twice in the past two decades, with their last victory coming in Fulmer’s penultimate season as Tennessee’s head coach in 2007. Since Fulmer’s coaching retirement, the Vols have endured five different head coaches that have posted a combined overall record of 83-81.

If you asked Florida fans 10 years ago who would be considered Florida’s three biggest rivals in football, there would almost be a unanimous consensus amongst the fan base: Georgia, Florida State and Tennessee.

Though there is still plenty of venomous animosity between Florida and Tennessee fans, the luster that this football rivalry once possessed has become a dull, one-sided affair.

The Gators have won 17 of their last 20 games against the Vols dating back to 2002. This includes Florida winning 16 of their last 17 matchups against Tennessee.

For the sake of comparison, Tennessee’s other biggest proclaimed rival is the Alabama Crimson Tide. However, the national juggernauts have also won 17 of their last 20 games against the Vols, including a 15-game winning streak that dates back to Nick Saban’s first year in Tuscaloosa.

It begs the obvious question: should Florida fans consider Tennessee a rival anymore?

When comparing with the rest of the SEC East, Tennessee’s recent history against Florida has been lethargic.

The annual Halloween weekend matchup in Jacksonville between Georgia and Florida has remained steady, with both sides splitting the series evenly dating back to 2007. During that span the winner of that game has gone on to represent the SEC East in Atlanta 10 times.

The Missouri Tigers started playing the Gators annually when they joined the SEC back in 2012, yet have managed to split the series evenly over the decade.

South Carolina has also split the series evenly with Florida dating back to 2010.

Despite suffering a previous 31-game losing streak against the Gators, the Kentucky Wildcats have recently won three of their last five games against Florida.

And to add more salt to Tennessee’s open wound, the Vols have the same amount of victories against the Gators since 2005 as does in-state rival Vanderbilt.

When you think of Florida’s rivalry with Georgia, in recent history it has meant a potential SEC championship berth, as well as a reminder of the old nickname “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.”

With the Florida State rivalry, you think of in-state supremacy as part of the entitled “Sunshine Showdown.”

In the case of Tennessee, it is an annual divisional game without any agreed upon nicknames from both fan bases. And instead of it being a nearly evenly split series, it has become a running gag to see how Tennessee will find a way to lose to Florida each year.

In 2012 the Vols had a 20-13 lead at home midway through the third quarter. They wound up allowing 24 unanswered points in the final 18 minutes to lose 37-20.

In 2014 the Vols shutout Florida through the first three quarters, entering the fourth with a 9-0 lead. But after two turnovers in the final 15 minutes, Tennessee lost their fifth straight home game to the Gators 10-9.

And of course who could forget not one, but two 63-yard touchdown passes by Florida in the final 90 seconds of the 4th quarter in both 2015 and 2017 respectively to cap off the win?

If one were to ask Florida fans today who they would consider Florida’s biggest rival after Georgia and Florida State, chances are you would likely hear LSU or even Kentucky more frequently than you would Tennessee.

Saturday’s game could be the final time these two play each other in Knoxville before the eventual conference realignment takes place with the additions of Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC.

There have been several guesses as to how the SEC will realign the conference, with many of the scenarios eliminating the annual matchup between both of these schools.

Tennessee enters Saturday’s game as touchdown favorite against the Gators. The general consensus is that Tennessee should win this game. Perhaps by way of a double-digit blowout.

In theory the pressure should be on Florida this weekend, as they enter a hostile road environment with lackluster performances on offense over the past two games. Yet in week 1 the Gators dealt with the pressure of being a home underdog to no. 7 Utah and found a way to win the game late.

On the contrary, this will be the first time that Josh Heupel will have to deal with heavy expectations since becoming Tennessee’s head coach one year ago. And over the past decade we have seen on multiple occasions where Tennessee has had to bear the pressure of being the favorites to win against Florida, ultimately to fall short of meeting those expectations late in the game.

On paper the Vols should win Saturday’s game convincingly. Especially when considering Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker has been one of the SEC’s most efficient quarterbacks throwing the ball through the first three weeks of the season. Meanwhile Florida’s Anthony Richardson remains the only starting quarterback in the SEC to not throw a touchdown pass this season and is facing a Tennessee defense that currently ranks 14th nationally in points allowed (14.3).

While a win against Tennessee would be a confidence booster for first-year head coach Billy Napier and his staff, it is by no means a must-win situation for the Gators.

For Florida, Saturday’s game is just another building block as part of the cultural rebuild taking place in Gainesville by Napier and his army of assistants.

Though some Florida fans may consider it a black eye on Napier’s resume if he would become the first Florida coach since Bob Woodruff in 1955 to lose to both Kentucky and Tennessee in the same season, it is also important to remember that this same Florida team was projected by Vegas oddsmakers to win only 7.5 games in 2022 after losing five of their final seven games last year.

There’s an old cliche that a dead clock is right twice a day. Considering the Gators have managed to win 16 of their past 17 games against the Vols, the Gators have built enough equity to endure a loss to a ranked Tennessee during a rebuilding season.

However, the opposite can be said of Tennessee this weekend.

If there was ever a time for Tennessee to rid itself of its losing hangover against Florida, this is the weekend for it to happen. Though Tennessee has played mostly mediocre non-conference competition through its first three games, the Vols have placed themselves alongside Kentucky to be the biggest figurative threats to Georgia in the SEC East.

A loss to Florida on Saturday in front of a sold-out home crowd would be a great demoralizer for a Vols team with high expectations for 2022. And with a gruesome SEC gauntlet slated in October against LSU, Alabama and Kentucky, the Vols could potentially spiral down from 3-0 to potentially 4-4 before facing Georgia on November 5.

Overall a  Tennessee victory this weekend could be the spark that reignites this once famed conference rivalry, and perhaps saves this annual matchup from fading away in the coming years.

But until the Vols football program can consistently stop staggering against top tier SEC programs similar to drunk Tennessee fans failing a sobriety test, Florida fans should consider Tennessee an annoying pest rather than a rival.

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