Change one game

#26
#26
Pro: 1975 Divisional Playoff Dallas v Minnesota. Drew Pearson clearly pushes off, and the 'hail mary' becomes famous and the 10 year streak of the cowboys on TV every freaking Sunday and becoming 'America's Team' (gag) commences. Besides, that was the most loaded of the 1970s Vikings teams, and would have likely broken the SB curse. Pearson pushed off. Not even close.

Tennessee: 2001 LSU. It was when I knew Fulmer was just mailing it in, and it simultaneously launched the lil fella down at LSU into his current trajectory.
 
#27
#27
This is tough because do you elect to change the single most painful loss regardless of when it occurred, or do you elect to change a loss that, had the game gone the other way, changes the trajectory of the program?

Without a doubt, the most painful loss during Fulmer's tenure at Tennessee was the 2001 SECCG. That would have made it 3 SEC titles in 5 years and playing for a shot at the national title 3 times in 5 years. Some here will disagree, but I think Miami would have demolished us in that title game, and I'm not sure winning the SEC in 2001 changes the trajectory of the program.

It gets overlooked (well, not if you're @Boca Vol) but that 1999 Arkansas loss might have been a trajectory-changing loss. Would have been back in Atlanta for the 3rd year in a row, I really would have liked our chances to beat Alabama for a 3rd SEC title in a row and would have almost certainly played in the national title game again.

Or what about the 1998 Orange Bowl loss? I know you may say "That's crazy, we won the title the very next year" but think about it - Tennessee likely would have had a share of the national title in 1997 and then would have repeated in 1998. Does our momentum and recruiting success become more embedded with back-to-back titles, making it harder for Saban, Richt, and Urban to recruit against us when they eventually arrived?
 
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#28
#28
Could also add 1996 UF on there as well.

I know that was not a close game (final score is really misleading), and we still lost to Memphis later that season, but we would have played in the SECCG (starting a 3-year streak of East titles) and UF would not have won the national championship that year. Another potential trajectory-changing game.
 
#29
#29
05_never_again said:
Could also add 1996 UF on there as well.

I know that was not a close game (final score is really misleading), and we still lost to Memphis later that season, but we would have played in the SECCG (starting a 3-year streak of East titles) and UF would not have won the national championship that year. Another potential trajectory-changing game.
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Both of our losses in 1998 were trajectory changing.

Even after losing to you guys in OT, we could have backed into another national title rematch. But Spurrier could never break that Tallahassee curse.
 
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#30
#30
Lawrence Wright said:
Both of our losses in 1998 were trajectory changing.

Even after losing to you guys in OT, we could have backed into another national title rematch. But Spurrier could never break that Tallahassee curse.
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Kind of wild how Bowden went 8-5-1 all-time against Spurrier, and never lost in Tallanasty to UF. I feel like that's an underrated stat about his tenure at FSU, especially considering how good UF was during that era. Or it could be that I'm just really envious of it, because Spurrier completely befuddled our good coach.
 
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#31
#31
05_never_again said:
Kind of wild how Bowden went 8-5-1 all-time against Spurrier. I feel like that's an underrated stat about his tenure at FSU. Or it could be that I'm just really envious of it, because Spurrier completely befuddled our coach.
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The “1” in that 8-5-1 might be the most painful of all.

Looking back at the 90s, every dominant team had its Kryptonite.

Tennessee had Florida.

Florida had FSU.

Nebraska also had FSU.

FSU had Miami.

Miami had the NCAA.
 
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#32
#32
Lawrence Wright said:
The “1” in that 8-5-1 might be the most painful of all.

Looking back at the 90s, every dominant team had its Kryptonite.

Tennessee had Florida.

Florida had FSU.

Nebraska also had FSU.

FSU had Miami.

Miami had the NCAA.
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Let's not forget the mighty Colorado Buffaloes. When they did not get 5 downs in every critical series, their program imploded.
 
#34
#34
05_never_again said:
Kind of wild how Bowden went 8-5-1 all-time against Spurrier, and never lost in Tallanasty to UF. I feel like that's an underrated stat about his tenure at FSU, especially considering how good UF was during that era. Or it could be that I'm just really envious of it, because Spurrier completely befuddled our good coach.
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Spurrier certainly owned Fulmer but in reality, Tennessee had a great as record against him as a HC as anyone else. (9 wins 15 losses)
and of those 15 losses, 7 came down to one play that lost the game for us.
 
#35
#35
Rickyvol77 said:
Spurrier certainly owned Fulmer but in reality, Tennessee had a great as record against him as a HC as anyone else. (9 wins 15 losses)
and of those 15 losses, 7 came down to one play that lost the game for us.
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Not FSU. Bobby Bowden got the better of Spurrier. Went 8-5-1 against him, including 5-0-1 in Tallahassee.

Phil went 3-7 against Spurrier, including 1-4 at The Swamp. But that one victory was pretty sweet.
 
#36
#36
05_never_again said:
Not FSU. Bobby Bowden got the better of Spurrier. Went 8-5-1 against him, including 5-0-1 in Tallahassee.
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I know, but im saying that every one else in the sport acts like we were terrible against Florida and Spurrier when we had as good a consistent record against him as almost anyone else (not Bowden). It's not like we lost 14 in a row to him or anything
 
#37
#37
Rickyvol77 said:
I know, but im saying that every one else in the sport acts like we were terrible against Florida and Spurrier when we had as good a consistent record against him as almost anyone else (not Bowden). It's not like we lost 14 in a row to him or anything
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Eh, people are pretty quick to point out how bad UGA was against Spurrier too. They only beat him once. They were terrible against UF, but they also weren't a top program at that time like Tennessee was.

I think people mention it so often because Tennessee, at that time, was a top program that might have even looked better on paper than UF did some years. Particularly when Peyton was there. You'd expect a decade-plus worth of games to be much closer to 50/50.
 
#41
#41
05_never_again said:
Not FSU. Bobby Bowden got the better of Spurrier. Went 8-5-1 against him, including 5-0-1 in Tallahassee.

Phil went 3-7 against Spurrier, including 1-4 at The Swamp. But that one victory was pretty sweet.
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Should’ve been 5-5. Had 99 and 2000 won. At least should’ve been 4-6. FG’s and toss sweeps… SMFH
 
#42
#42
RDU VOL#14 said:
Should’ve been 5-5. Had 99 and 2000 won. At least should’ve been 4-6. FG’s and toss sweeps… SMFH
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Disagree on 1999...UF was in cruise control leading 23-7 and driving to score when Doug Johnson started playing catch with UT’s secondary. UT closed the gap and had the ball with a chance to win late, but at no point did they have it won as you said.

2000 is another story. UT ran up, down and through UF all day, but settled for 3 too many times.
 
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#43
#43
Lawrence Wright said:
Disagree on 1999...UF was in cruise control leading 23-7 and driving to score when Doug Johnson started playing catch with UT’s secondary. UT closed the gap and had the ball with a chance to win late, but at no point did they have it won as you said.

2000 is another story. UT ran up, down and through UF all day, but settled for 3 too many times.
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That was poor choice of words. We could have won that game after Dougie threw the same pick Jesse threw to Grant the year before. Poor play calling on that drive, including the toss sweep on 4th down didn’t help . You’re right, I did make it sound like the game was in hand. I didn’t really mean it the way I wrote.
 
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#44
#44
Boston Vol said:
1993 Florida. Tennessee wins that and then the SEC title game against Bama and they enter bowl season 11-0-1 and would have had a great chance of winning the National Championship.
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Great pick. Think we have a better chance in 93 against fsu or Nebraska than in 01 against arguably one of the most talented college teams of all time or 95 against Nebraska if we beat lsu and Florida respectfully those years. In 01 we had a lot of close games against some pretty terrible teams. Never seemed to play up to our talent except for the Florida game.
My pick would be bama in 89 as our run game would match up pretty well against Miami in the sugar bowl that year. Think with that win Majors would be considered one of the top college coaches of all-time with two championships at two different programs that he built back up on his own.
Hard to pick a recent game in the past 10 years when in the late 80s to early 2000s there were so many seasons where we were 1 game away from playing for a championship. Changing an outcome of a dooley, Butch, or Pruitt game would just have prolonged the inevitable.
 
#46
#46
99gator said:
As a Gator fan, hard to think of a game that dearly cost Florida that people really hang their hat on.

No Gator fan is going to say the Fiesta Bowl vs. Nebraska because Florida got manhandled. The idea of a do-over causes PTSD.

The 4th and dumb game against Georgia cost Florida an SEC title in 1976. Steve Spurrier would certainly like a do-over against Georgia in 1966.

One game I'd personally like to have back is the Sugar Bowl loss to Notre Dame after the 1991 season.
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Spurrier rarely got it right the first time at UF in big games.

First trip to Knoxville…45-3 blowout loss.

First SECCG…close loss to eventual national champ Alabama.

First national title game…complete destruction by an all-time Nebraska team.

Every trip to FSU…L, or an even worse tie.

Oddly enough, in addition to never winning in Tallahassee, he also never won in Starkville as UF’s head coach. Mississippi State fans are quick to point that out.
 
#47
#47
Lawrence Wright said:
Spurrier rarely got it right the first time at UF in big games.

First trip to Knoxville…45-3 blowout loss.

First SECCG…close loss to eventual national champ Alabama.

First national title game…complete destruction by an all-time Nebraska team.

Every trip to FSU…L, or an even worse tie.

Oddly enough, in addition to never winning in Tallahassee, he also never won in Starkville as UF’s head coach. Mississippi State fans are quick to point that out.
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Always thought it was odd that Spurrier won "only" the one title in 1996. I've always felt like he was such a better coach that Fulmer, but when all was said and done they ended up with the same number of national titles, although HBC's overall winning % (at UF) and number of conference titles were much higher.

Bobby really was his nemesis, that's for sure. BB stuck around too long but was an incredible coach. I feel like he, despite obviously being a huge figure in the history of CFB, is somehow underrated. He not only won at the level that he did but built FSU's program from nothing.
 
#48
#48
05_never_again said:
Always thought it was odd that Spurrier won "only" the one title in 1996. I've always felt like he was such a better coach that Fulmer, but when all was said and done they ended up with the same number of national titles, although HBC's overall winning % (at UF) and number of conference titles were much higher.

Bobby really was his nemesis, that's for sure. He stuck around too long but was an incredible coach. I feel like he, despite obviously being a huge figure in the history of CFB, is somehow underrated. He not only won at the level that he did but built FSU's program from nothing.
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In hindsight, you could argue Bobby was a bit underrated.

Like I said, back in those days, every team had a nemesis that kept them from dominating the decade.

Dominating the decade…that reminds me of this DVD I saw many years ago. 😁
 
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#50
#50
Lawrence Wright said:
In hindsight, you could argue Bobby was a bit underrated.

Like I said, back in those days, every team had a nemesis that kept them from dominating the decade.

Dominating the decade…that reminds me of this DVD I saw many years ago. 😁
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That DVD was nowhere near as bad as "2001: A Big Orange Odyssey." I'm kind of embarrassed to watch that - the ending is sooooo bad.
 
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