The carriers of the modern flame in Tennessee's two biggest rivalries, and they are incredibly good at it. The two top SEC coaches in the last decade have cast aside good and bad Tennessee teams en route to their championships. They have all of the success of Steve Spurrier with none of the personality, making UT's futility against them cold and dark, and the vitality of both rivalries has suffered. But their resumes speak for themselves.
Nick Saban
- On the sideline for the most heartbreaking loss in the history of Tennessee Football, guiding Matt Mauck and the LSU Tigers to victory in the 2001 SEC Championship Game.
- Pants on fire: was not going to be the head coach at Alabama, by his own admission. Changed his mind in less than two weeks thanks to the soullessly deep pockets of our enemies to the south.
- Leading a team that would lose to Louisiana-Monroe against a team that would win the SEC East, Saban's 2007 Alabama squad torched the Vols 41-17. John Parker Wilson and D.J. Hall wrote their names into the Alabama record books, a sentence that still doesn't look right. This was the worst performance by a John Chavis defense at Tennessee.
- Won a National Championship in 2009, in part by calling for Maximum Block against the Vols and giving Daniel Moore an excuse to create more "art".
- His 2010 team executed the biggest Alabama win in the history of Neyland Stadium, 41-10.
- Signs between 25 and 12357120472 (one for every alleged Alabama National Championship) players every February. But don't ask him about it.
- Napoleon had a Nick Saban complex.
- Record against the Vols: 6-1 (2-1 LSU, 4-0 Alabama)
Urban Meyer
- Won a National Championship in his second year in Gainesville, which included a 21-20 win in Knoxville led by Chris Leak and Tim Tebow.
- In 2007, handed Phillip Fulmer the worst loss of his career (and the lives of Vol fans under 30) in a 59-20 beatdown. To say he ran the score up is an understatement.
- Perhaps the tipping point of public perception with Fulmer was the 2008 Florida game, in which the Gators
kept the Vols out of the end zoneheld the Vols to six points and once again found success with punt returns. Most of Urban's success against the Vols has come via special teams, which makes it so much worse. - If Lane Kiffin was still the coach here, I'd tell you he tried to cheat to get Nu'Keese Richardson and we still landed him. Clearly we were the real winners in that battle.
- When he failed to unleash the fury against the '09 Vols, he accused us of not really trying to win and blamed a minor illness that apparently ravaged his entire roster.
- He's retiring to spend more time with his kids!
- He's back!
- He's losing!...just not to us...
- He's retiring to spend more time with his kids!
- He's on ESPN all the time! And every bit as charming as he ever was! When will a coach accuse him of being a bad guy and threaten to fight him!
- It should read, "The Fulmer Cup, Presented by Urban Meyer."
- Record against the Vols: 6-0. It's okay, we'll get our shot when he's at Ohio State.