If there’s a single football game Tennessee needs to win this season for the sake of its fan base’s sanity, it’s the one at Neyland Stadium the fourth Saturday in September.
That’s when the Volunteers will try – again – to snap their long losing streak to rival Florida.
The skid, now at 11 games, already was weighing heavily on the program and its fans before the past two meetings, during which Florida came back to hand Tennessee a pair of disheartening one-point defeats. The 28-27 loss last season in Gainesville, Fla., featured a cacophony of errors from coaches and players and cost the Vols the Southeastern Conference’s East Division title, which the Gators won.
Naturally, that defeat and the losing streak it extended came up during Tennessee coach Butch Jones’ news conference Tuesday at the SEC spring meetings in Destin, Fla.
“I haven’t even thought of that,” Jones told reporters.