Tennessee-Georgia: This Week in History

by Will Shelton on Oct 7, 2009 10:00 AM EDT in Tennessee Volunteer Football

Because when you're playing Georgia, it's always fun to remember the past:

5 Years Ago: After freshmen Erik Ainge and Brent Schaeffer helped the Vols stun Florida 30-28 in Knoxville, they were ambushed by what would become the undefeated Auburn juggernaut 34-10. The very next week brought the Vols to Athens, where Georgia was fresh off a 45-16 rout of defending national champion LSU, and carried a #3 ranking and were giving 12 points in Vegas. It would become one of Phillip Fulmer's greatest upsets, as Ainge fired a touchdown pass on the opening drive en route to a 13-7 halftime lead, then added another to put the Vols ahead 19-7 in the 4th quarter. Georgia cut the lead to 19-14 and David Greene was on his way to leading another heartbreaking final drive, but it ended at the UT 19 with an incomplete pass in the end zone, and the Vols locked up the SEC East 19-14. It's #11 in the 50 Best Games of the Fulmer Era. This was UT's first win over Georgia since...

10 Years Ago: The Vols were defending National Champions but Georgia was undefeated coming into Neyland Stadium, both teams in the top ten. But as they did so often to the Dawgs during the late 90s, Tennessee jumped out in front and never looked back. Behind three touchdown runs from Tee Martin, the Vols led 30-7 before Georgia tried to mount a comeback. Two scores cut the lead to 30-20 in the 4th quarter, but Leonard Scott ran the ensuing kickoff back 100 yards to seal it, 37-20. The Vols sacked Quincy Carter six times and scored their final victory in a nine game win streak over Georgia.

15 Years Ago: Definitive proof that you can still play well when your quarterback is a liability: Todd Helton lined up under center in Athens in his first career start, and the #19 Vols made a point to run, run, and run some more against #23 Georgia. The bulk of the work was done by James "Little Man" Stewart, who ripped Georgia for 211 yards and 4 touchdowns, tying a UT record for touchdowns by a back in one game. Stewart's performance included a 71 yard touchdown run with six broken tackles that is still one of the best I've ever seen. Tennessee rolled 41-23 in Helton's one and only win as a starting quarterback.

20 Years Ago: The final performance of the CobbWebb attack came in Neyland Stadium, as the 4-0 Vols were 6th in the country and would use the arm of Andy Kelly and the legs of Sterling Henton at quarterback to jump to a 17-6 lead, and an opportunistic defense would make it stand up in a 17-14 win. It was Tennessee's 10th in a row dating back to the previous season, and their first in the eventual nine game win streak over Georgia. Cobb would be dismissed from the team the following week for failing a drug test. And we've got a Bill Goldberg sighting in the highlights:

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Ahh, the memories

The 1995 (I think) game where Robert Edwards carved up the Vols defense in the first half was one of my all time favorites. If he had not suffered a fracture in his foot he would have posted some sick numbers. However, we had Peyton Manning and they did not.

Does anybody remember the “Zeier Clock” that was added to the broadcast for one of the Georgia games? Their theory was that if Eric Zeier was on the field for X minutes, Georgia always would win.

After UT went up huge on them and Zeier was forced into terrible play by the UT defense, the Zeier Clock was taken off the broadcast. Don’t know why, but that really made me happy.

Ball, oskie, cover, block, cut and slice, pursue and gang tackle... for this is the WINNING EDGE.

by pound the rock on Oct 7, 2009 10:46 AM EDT reply actions