Is there a better comeback story in 2019 than the Tennessee football team, which opened the season with a loss to the Sun Belt’s Georgia State?
Let’s face it: you were probably laughing, too, at Tennessee’s start to the 2019 football season. The Volunteers opened the season with a home loss to Georgia State, a Sun Belt team that had finished 2-10 one year earlier. In Week 2, BYU completed an odds-defying comeback to tie the game in regulation, and then defeat the Vols in double overtime, 29-26.
After a home cupcake win against FCS opponent Chattanooga and two big losses to Georgia and Florida, Tennessee was 1-4 and the laughingstock of the SEC, and probably the nation, for that matter. After finishing 5-7 in 2018 and 4-8 the year before, maybe this year’s UT squad would go down as the worst in school history.
After those first five games, a Knoxville radio host announced that he would live in a tent on top of a building, with a drain for a bathroom, until Tennessee won another football game. Some feared that he might need some warmer layers for winter, if not a Christmas tree.
Looking back after Week 10’s results of the 2019 season, are you ready to call it the comeback of the year?
Tennessee has now beaten two SEC opponents, Mississippi State and South Carolina. The Vols outscored the Gamecocks 24-0 in the second half despite an injured quarterback Brian Maurer. Then, Tennessee was awfully close to making it a one-possession game late against the vaunted Crimson Tide before a 100-yard fumble return for a touchdown, courtesy of of Alabama’s Trevon Diggs. Alabama would go on to win, 35-13.
In Week 10, there were whispers that UAB, the defending Conference USA champions sporting a 6-1 record, could come into Neyland Stadium and defeat the Volunteers.
Tennessee, though, blasted the Blazers, 30-7, behind a stiff rushing defense (allowing only 63 yards on the ground) and three interceptions by defensive back Bryce Thompson, which tied a school record.
Tennessee will finish this season with road trips to Kentucky and Missouri before wrapping it up with a home date against in-state rival Vanderbilt.
Even if the Vols fall short of a bowl game, I’m ready to call it the comeback story of the year. Many expected that this team would throw in the towel after two embarrassing losses to begin the 2019 season. Tennessee and head coach Jeremy Pruitt, though, have shown us that they have some toughness and resilience, and that their spoiler role for 2019 isn’t over yet.