2004 or Look! It's another Manning!

Back in 2004, Tennessee was searching for a starting quarterback to replace four-year starter Casey Clausen. The candidates included sixth-year senior C.J. Leak, LSU reject Rick Clausen (Casey's younger brother), and two decent recruits – dual-threat Brent Schaeffer and pocket passer Erik Ainge. Here's what Ainge's recruiting profile looked like right out of high school:

Not too shabby, but not necessarily somebody you'd think would be destined for the starting gig as a freshman. But traditionally conservative head coach Phillip Fulmer shocked the Volunteer Nation by naming Ainge and Schaeffer "co-starters" over both Leak and Clausen.

The 2QB experiment began surprisingly well. Schaeffer took the first snap of the first game, but he and Ainge rotated every two series or so, and both managed fairly well. In the second game of the season, though, Ainge got hot against Florida, stole most of the snaps from Schaeffer, and led the team to a thrilling last-minute victory over the Gators. Ainge was, along with kicker James Wilhoit, responsible for the pandemonium showcased in the video below. Don't expect to actually be able to tell what's going on (Wilhoit's hitting the game-winning field goal after missing an extra point on the prior drive that should have tied the game), but it will certainly give you a feel for how Tennessee fans felt about Wilhoit, who won the game, and Ainge, who put Wilhoit in position to do so.

Yes, fans were ecstatic that Tennessee had found its next quarterback prodigy, and comparisons to Peyton Manning began in earnest. But by mid-season, Ainge's numbers began to flatten out a bit and the fawning began to wane. By the time we played South Carolina that year, he was unable to get anything done, and it was Schaeffer who came in and kick-started the offense. Unfortunately, Schaeffer had his collar bone broken during the game and would be out for the rest of the season. Ainge then re-claimed the No. 1 spot for himself and appeared to have locked up the I’m-the-Four-Year-Starting-Quarterback-at-Tennessee position through attrition.

And then came the 2004 Notre Dame game. With the clock winding down in the first half and the team deep in our own territory, Tennessee coaches called a running passing play instead of a play to run out the clock, and disaster followed. The center snapped the ball low, and Ainge tried to pick it up and make something out of nothing. As he scrambled, a Notre Dame player slammed him to the ground on his right shoulder, and just like that, Ainge was also out for the season. Many Tennessee fans point to that play as the reason that Ainge later developed the nagging panic response to pressure in the pocket that would haunt him the next season.

Third-stringer Rick Clausen came in after Ainge's Notre Dame injury and led the team to an 11-2 season. Clausen was even named Player of the Game in the Cotton Bowl that season and named a team captain for the following season, all of which set the stage for a raging, pus-filled QB controversy and a 2005 season of monumentally disastrous proportions known around these parts as The Season of Which We Do Not Speak.

2005 or The Phenom Goes Boom in the End zone

Clausen, still riding high from his Cotton Bowl performance, got all the work with the ones during the spring because Ainge was still recovering from his shoulder injury. At fall practice, he and Ainge split the reps, and the coaching staff did not name a starter until late August, just one week before the first game. Despite Clausen’s better numbers in fall scrimmages, the coaches put their trust in Ainge, citing his advantages in mobility and strength of arm.

Ainge played well early in the first game of the season, scoring 10 points in his first two series, but the coaches then inexplicably put Clausen in the game simply because they wanted to rotate quarterbacks, and when Ainge returned, he was out of sync. He would admit after the game that he was pressing, trying to make bigger plays so that he wouldn't be yanked again. Instead, he threw pass after pass over the heads of his 6’4" receivers. It didn’t help that the receivers couldn’t catch the ball even when thrown perfectly. So Ainge was yanked, and Clausen ended up playing most of the game and scraping out a close win against an inferior opponent in UAB.

Having guided the team to victory over UAB after Ainge lost his rhythm, Clausen started the Florida game by going 2 of 5 for zero net yards. Fulmer then yanked Clausen after only two series, and this time Ainge played most of the game and the entire second half. The QB and the receivers, however, were still out of sync, and we lost anyway.

So what to do with the quarterback, um, situation? A rare nationally-televised Monday night game (due to second of the 2005 hurricanes to decimate Louisiana) seemed like the perfect time to settle on a single QB. Send him a message that the team is his and let him start to develop the chemistry even if he screws up. Coach Fulmer chose Ainge, and darnit, we were going to stick with him come hell or high water.

But then came hell and high water. And frogs, and gnats, and locusts, and Paris Hilton, and a host of other plagues. On Tennessee's first possession, Ainge fumbled deep in his own territory, and LSU found the end zone on the very next play. The next drive consisted of a receiver dropping a catchable pass, Ainge taking a delay of game, another receiver dropping a pass, and the first of innumerable punts. On the next drive, Ainge started overthrowing receivers again.

And then came the defining moment of the Tennessee Volunteers’ 2005 season, on our own one-yard line:

2006 or the Reanimation of Erik Ainge

There was significant fallout from the 2005 season. Offensive coordinator Randy Sanders fell on his sword and made room for the return of ahead-to-the-past coordinator and quarterback guru David Cutcliffe. Job one for the Manning Maker was the Reanimation of Erik Ainge. He started by teaching him defense. He rebuilt his confidence. He broke down his mechanics and started again from scratch. And, most importantly, he re-programmed Ainge's panic response. No more of this Tennessee fainting goat stuff, locking up under pressure and throwing the ball up for grabs. No, when pressure came, Ainge was to heave the ball over the upper deck and into the Tennessee River. Each and every time.

Did it work? Hey, this is David Cutcliffe. Of course it worked. Ainge's stats for 2006.

*Ainge played only a little against LSU and not at all against Arkansas.

Ainge passed for 291 yards and four touchdowns in his first game under Cutcliffe's tutelage, and he never let up except for a couple of games during which he was injured. He set a Tennessee season record with a completion percentage of 67%. That's better even than Peyton Manning's Tennessee record of 64.2% for a minimum of 300 attempts. He was second in the SEC in passing yards per game (249.1), and third in total offense (240.6). He finished the season fifth all time among UT passers.

2007 or Just Like Last Time Only Better

Ainge's senior season was also a success:

Ainge was sacked only three times during his entire senior season, partly due to his offensive line, but also due to his ability to make his reads, get the ball off quick, and cut his losses early.

Overall, Ainge's Tennessee career was very, very good, but Cutcliffe himself thinks that the best is yet to come:

It is wise not to argue with the Manning Maker.

Bonus video!