On Saturday, the No. 15 Tennessee Volunteers will host the No. 6 Georgia Bulldogs in an SEC showdown. Tennessee is looking to make a statement in its conference opener and snap a rough streak of performances against the defending SEC champion Bulldogs.
The Volunteers and Bulldogs first squared off in 1899 and have met every year since 1992. But the matchup hasn’t exactly been on equal footing in recent seasons — Georgia has won the past eight contests.
The last time Tennessee won, in 2016, it was Kirby Smart’s first season as head coach at his alma mater, Alvin’s chamber was catching passes out of the backfield for the Volunteers and the victory came after a chaotic and iconic ending.
Georgia struck first and fast, jumping to a 17-0 lead. But Tennessee didn’t go away, and with just under three minutes remaining, took its first lead on a strip-sack fumble recovery in the end zone. The Bulldogs weren’t done though, and seemingly had the game won when quarterback Jacob Eason connected with wide receiver Riley Ridley on a 47-yard touchdown pass with just 10 seconds remaining.
But an excessive celebration penalty meant Georgia had to kick off from its 20-yard line. With Tennessee returner Evan Berry racing the shortened kick past midfield, quarterback Josh Dobbs was in range for one last-gasp Hail Mary heave.
Dobbs found wide receiver Jauan Jennings in the end zone to give the Volunteers a miraculous 34-31 win.
Since Dobbs and Jennings shocked Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia, though, the series has been all Bulldogs. With the two teams set to meet again this weekend in Nashville, Tennessee, we looked back at what things were like during their 2016 battle.
A familiar face on the sideline for the Bulldogs
Georgia’s 2016 loss to Tennessee marks a small but notable milestone in recent Bulldog history — it was Smart’s first home loss as Georgia’s head coach.
Smart had taken over at his alma mater in the preceding offseason, replacing Mark Richt, who had coached Georgia for the previous 15 seasons. The Smart era didn’t open in dominant fashion, as the Bulldogs started 4-4, including a 2-4 mark in SEC play. The loss to the Volunteers was one of three home defeats Georgia had that season.
Things would hit an upswing quickly for Smart & Co., though. The Bulldogs won the SEC and made the national championship game in 2017, and Smart is 49-1 in Sanford Stadium since his first year.
On Tennessee’s sideline, a less memorable figure
While 2016 marked the start of a new era in Athens, it was near the end of an unspectacular tenure in Knoxville.
The Volunteers started strong in Butch Jones’ fourth campaign, with the win over Georgia marking a 5-0 start for Jones’ squad. Tennessee lost its next three games, including a 49-10 dismantling at the hands of the Alabama Crimson Tide at Neyland Stadium.
Things unraveled further in 2017, with a 4-6 start leading to Jones’ dismissal as head coach.
An NFL duo in the Georgia backfield
The Bulldogs leaned on their ground game in Smart’s first season — averaging over 40 carries per game — and for good reason. The backfield tandem in Athens featured a future four-time NFL Pro Bowler in Nick Chubb and a two-time Super Bowl champion in Sony Michel.
Both juniors in 2016, Chubb rushed for 1,130 yards and eight touchdowns on the season, while Michel added 840 yards and four scores. Chubb had only one carry against Tennessee as he was limited by a sprained anklebut Michel posted 91 yards and a touchdown on 16 carries.
Kamara and Jennings come up big for the Vols
The NFL talent on offense wasn’t limited to red and white. Tennessee had some notable names perform well to help it take home a victory.
Five-time NFL Pro Bowler Kamara, a running back with the New Orleans Saints rushed for 62 yards and recorded three catches for 26 yards and a score. Jennings, now a receiver with the San Francisco 49erscaught three balls for 71 yards, 43 of which came on the game-winning Hail Mary.
Short-term similarities, long-term divergence
Georgia’s and Tennessee’s respective 2016 seasons had common threads. Their records (8-5 for the Bulldogs and 9-4 for the Volunteers) were similar. Both had lost rivalry games in the final week of the regular season (Georgia Tech for Georgia and Vanderbilt for Tennessee) before rebounding with bowl wins in Tennessee (the Liberty Bowl in Memphis for the Bulldogs and the Music City Bowl in Nashville for the Volunteers).
By the following season, however, the two programs’ paths diverged dramatically. Smart proved to be the perfect man for the job at Georgia, winning 36 games over the next three years and eventually ending the program’s over 40-year title drought in 2021 (and then becoming the first coach in a decade to hoist back-to-back national titles in 2022).
Jones was dismissed midway through the next season, but Tennessee’s struggles weren’t over.
Jeremy Pruitt took the reins and coached for three seasons without a breakthrough before he was eventually fired. It was Pruitt’s successor — Josh Heupel, who took over in 2021 — who helped the Volunteers rise to SEC title contenders, having produced two 10-plus win seasons in the past three years.
