Befitting any wise and wary college football coach, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga's Russ Huesman declined to speculate about the Tennessee Volunteers' chances of ending a 10-game losing streak to Florida inside the Gators' Swamp this weekend.
"I've got enough to worry about getting my guys ready to face a very good Presbyterian team," Huesman said with a smile as he addressed his own team's tough road trip Saturday.
But he did fondly remember a couple of road wins he's been a part of during his career that seemed to change the direction and success of those teams going forward.
"The one I always recall is a trip our Richmond team made to UMass the year we won the national championship," said Huesman, who was the Spiders' defensive coordinator that 2008 season before becoming the Mocs' head coach soon after Richmond beat Montana for the title atop Finley Stadium's Davenport Field.
"They had a really good team (ranked 10th at the time), and if lost we were done - there was no way we'd make the playoffs."
But the Spiders won 30-15, then rolled to the national title.
"I'd rather play at home," Huesman said. "But I've always thought you have a little more pride when you go into someone else's place and get a 'W.' It gives you a little confidence. You start to say, 'Maybe we are pretty decent.'"
For the Vols, of course, it's often gone the other way after facing Florida. With his team having risen to No. 23 in the polls prior to the 2012 meeting in Knoxville, Tennessee coach Derek Dooley watched a third-quarter lead become a 37-20 loss - the first of seven defeats in nine games, a slide that resulted in Dooley's termination.
Last year's game in Knoxville was even tougher for the Big Orange Nation to accept. A 9-0 lead after three periods became a 10-9 loss.
Now comes another trip to the Swamp, where UT has lost 10 out of its last 12, its last road win in the series coming in 2003 against former Florida coach Ron Zook.
"History is history," said UT junior quarterback Josh Dobbs, who wasn't a part of the Vols travel squad that lost in the Swamp two years ago. "Most of us have never even played there before."
UTC's Mocs had endured similar nightmares against Appalachian State for years, both home and away. The worst came in 2011, a 14-12 loss-from-ahead defeat that Huesman dubbed "one of the toughest losses of my career."
But come 2013, the Mountaineers' last in the Southern Conference, Huesman finally got revenge. UTC won 35-28 on its way to a SoCon co-championship.
"For me personally, that one was big," he said. "When you lose the kind we'd lost there a couple of times, games we thought we should have won, real heartbreakers, there's a moment where there's some doubt. You wonder if you're really any good. You start to wonder if you'll ever win there. So to finally do it two years ago, to beat them on the road, was huge."
When you've lost 10 straight to anyone, winning anywhere is huge, so much so that current Vols sophomore Todd Kelly Jr. remembers being in Neyland Stadium in 2004, which was the last time UT beat Florida.
"I just remember how loud it was," he said in recalling that 30-28 Vols victory on a late James Wilhoit field goal. "Until the Oklahoma game (two weeks ago), that was the loudest I'd ever heard Neyland."
It won't be loud in the Swamp should Tennessee win Saturday, though "Rocky Top" surely will fill the humid air. But a victory could signal a deafening change in a Vols football program that hasn't posted an eight-win season since the start of 2008 after recording 18 seasons of eight wins or better over the previous 19 years.
For proof of what one big win can do, just listen to UTC junior defensive back Dee Virgin's take on what that 2013 win at Appalachian State has meant to the Mocs.
"We've definitely had a different program," Virgin said Tuesday, pointing to back-to-back SoCon crowns, "since we won that game on the road."
And should the Vols win Saturday at the Swamp, so should Tennessee.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.