PROVO — At the University of Tennessee, a place famously nicknamed “Rocky Top,” the football program was toppled in the season opener.
Last Saturday at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Georgia State stunned the college football world by knocking off Tennessee, 38-30. This was a Georgia State team that was picked to finish last in the Sun Belt Conference and posted a 2-10 record last season. The orange-clad Vols were 26-point favorites.
“We just hit rock bottom. We have only one way to go — and that’s up.” — Former UT linebacker Eric Riffer
“We just hit rock bottom,” said former UT linebacker Eric Riffer, who played for the Vols in the late 1980s and early 1990s. “We have only one way to go — and that’s up.”
As Knoxville News Sentinel columnist John Adams wrote, “Calling it an ‘upset’ doesn’t do it justice. This was the worst loss in the modern era of Tennessee football.”
“This probably ranks No. 1 (on a list of Tennessee’s all-time worst losses),” Riffer said.
Yes, there’s plenty of angst and frustration in Knoxville.
Saturday, the Volunteers will look to pick themselves up as they host BYU in the first-ever meeting between the two programs. The Cougars are coming off a humbling 30-12 home loss to archrival Utah last Thursday.
Tennessee safety Nigel Warrior used the word “flabbergasted” to describe the loss to Georgia State, which was UT’s first season-opening home setback since 1983.
“The good news about being a fan and an ex-player is, I realize I had nothing to do with Saturday’s loss,” said Riffer, who played on Tennessee’s 1990 Southeastern Conference championship team that won the Sugar Bowl. “It’s difficult but these things happen. Hopefully these players will grow from it and will figure things out. BYU’s probably going to be a little nervous because typically when a wounded dog gets bit like that, they might come out and be a completely different team this Saturday than they were last Saturday. Tennessee’s got athletes. If they can put the right game plan together, they can win any game. But they’ve got to execute.”
David Ubben, who covers Tennessee football for The Athletic, said before Saturday’s game that the matchup against BYU “is the biggest game” of the Volunteers’ season because it could set the tone for the rest of the year.
But in the context of what happened last Saturday, this showdown is even bigger now.
“If you look at the schedule, you can say there are eight or nine wins. But after what we saw Saturday, can we get to .500?” Riffer said. “That’s not typical University of Tennessee football. It’s not where it should be.”
While this game looms large in Knoxville, most Tennessee fans don’t know much about the Cougars, who are based 1,800 miles away in Provo.
“This is the first meeting so there’s no history there at all,” Ubben said. “They’re so far away, their paths don’t cross very often.”
“I don’t know a ton about BYU. I know Steve Young came from there and they have a good history,” said Riffer, who owns a consulting business in Nashville. “Typically, Tennessee should look at BYU and say, ‘It’s going to be a difficult game but it’s a ‘W’ for us.’ Not in this instance. Tennessee has to take every game seriously. It’s going to be a difficult challenge for UT this Saturday.”
BYU is the marquee game on Tennessee’s home nonconference schedule. Beside Georgia State, the others are Chattanooga (Sept. 14) and UAB (Nov. 2). But there’s a lack of familiarity with the Cougars.
“The BYU game is a little underwhelming for the fans. They’d be happy if this was their ‘B’ game but it’s sort of their ‘A’ game. It’s kind of random,” Ubben said. “Tennessee’s played some big nonconference games. They’ll go to Oklahoma next year. They had West Virginia at a neutral site last year. BYU is the premier nonconference game for them this year. But it’s not a top-25 team or a team that they’ve played before or have a lot of passionate thoughts about. It’s a good game and a good test.”
This two-game series between BYU and Tennessee was announced Feb. 23, 2017. The Volunteers are scheduled to visit LaVell Edwards Stadium on Sept. 1 or 2, 2023.
“There’s something about those orange and white checkerboard end zones that shouts ‘Tradition!,’” BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe said at the time. “When the opportunity to play a series with Tennessee presented itself, we didn’t blink. They’re a storied football program with a winning tradition, national championships, a classic stadium, incredible fans and Hall of Fame coaches. It will be a great experience to visit SEC country and play in Neyland Stadium, and later host Tennessee in Provo.”
Tennessee has won six national championships in its storied history with the most recent coming in 1998 under coach Phillip Fulmer, who recorded the second-most victories in school history, 21 shy of legendary Robert Neyland.
In 2008, amid a 5-7 campaign, the Volunteers fired Fulmer, who became the athletic director in 2017.
Since Fulmer, the Vols have hired, and fired, Lane Kiffin, Derek Dooley and Butch Jones.
Current head coach Jeremy Pruitt, who previously served as the defensive coordinator at Alabama, is in his second season at the helm. The Volunteers went 5-7 a year ago.
“When you have a situation where you have several coaching changes over time, at the end of the day, they never should have gotten rid of Fulmer,” Riffer said. “Today, we’re still suffering from that. At least Fulmer is the AD now and he can start putting his theory on it. I think he’ll do a great job. I’m glad he’s the athletic director. He helped choose Pruitt. Pruitt’s still playing with Butch Jones-era players. I’m not saying they can’t come back or that they can’t develop. I’m saying that only having the program a little over the year, you can’t really judge Pruitt right now.”
Riffer was part of a Tennessee reclamation project decades ago.
In 1988, the Volunteers opened the season 0-6 under coach Johnny Majors (it’s also the last time Tennessee started 0-2, which could happen again should the Vols fall to BYU). After a midseason coaching staff shakeup, Tennessee won its final five games. Then the Vols went on to capture back-to-back SEC titles in 1989 and 1990.
“So it is possible to start poorly and turn it around,” Riffer said. “The former players that I talk to from the 1990s and the early 2000s want to get Tennessee football back to where it was.”
But it won’t be easy.
After playing BYU and Chattanooga, the Volunteers’ next four games are against Florida, Georgia, Mississippi State and Alabama.
As it turns out, Saturday’s game will also mark the first time Tennessee is selling alcohol at Neyland Stadium. The SEC passed a rule this past summer allowing league schools to sell alcohol. Five are currently doing that.
For the past 22 years, BYU has finished No. 1 on The Princeton Review’s list of “Stone-Cold Sober Schools.”
“When they made the announcement,” Ubben said, “the irony was thick on that one.”
A loss to BYU Saturday would probably have Volunteer fans looking to drown their sorrows.
During Education Week on BYU’s campus in August, Holmoe was asked about the new alcohol policy.
“We have a beverage contract with Coke here on campus. I think they have a contract with Jack Daniels, don’t they?” Holmoe joked.
Holmoe added, “The Tennessee people have been unbelievable to work with. They’ve been so good.”
About 7,500 Cougar fans are expected to attend Saturday’s game at 102,000-seat Neyland Stadium.
“I can’t say that I’m surprised. Neyland Stadium is probably on the short list of must-see venues in college football. I know BYU fans travel well,” Ubben said. “It can be a really special atmosphere at Neyland. But we haven’t seen that in a while.”