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A Look at the 10 Major Demons Tennessee Football Quarterback Joshua Dobbs has Helped the Vols Exercise Since Becoming the Full-Time Starter
Nov 1, 2014; Columbia, SC, USA; Tennessee Volunteers quarterback Joshua Dobbs (11) passes against the South Carolina Gamecocks in the second quarter at Williams-Brice Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Blake-USA TODAY Sports
Since becoming the full-time starter in 2014, Tennessee football quarterback Joshua Dobbs has helped the Volunteers exercise 10 major demons. Here they are.
As a freshman in 2013, he initially didn’t even make the Tennessee football travel roster. Then he became the full-time starter later that year…only to look awful and go 1-3.
But ever since Butch Jones inserted Josh Dobbs into the starting lineup in 2014 with the Vols at 3-4 and trailing Alabama 27-0, he has slowly but surely carried Tennessee football back to prominence.
Let’s start with the fact that ever since that day, the Vols have not been blown out by anybody. Even against Alabama, they made the score respectable with a 34-20 loss.
Dobbs has been the starting quarterback ever since then, and in the process the Vols have gone 18-5. They also haven’t lost a game by more than one score.
With Tennessee football sitting at 5-0 right now and 2-0 in the SEC, Dobbs is now a senior and has his team in prime position to make a run at the College Football Playoff. He also has the program on an 11-game winning streak, the second-longest in the country.
Sure, he has been a bit lucky at times. But there’s also been some bad luck in his losses. So that goes both ways.
At the same time, Dobbs has accomplished certain things Tennessee fans were desperate for just a couple of years ago. Tennessee football marked its futility by an inability to do specific things. They were curses, if you must.
Dobbs has broken almost all of them.
All that’s left is the curse of the Georgia Dome in the postseason and the curse of losing to SEC West teams. But with what Tennessee has done so far this year, there’s reason to believe Dobbs could break both of those curses.
However, let’s take a look back first. Here are the 10 major curses that Tennessee football has broken ever since Dobbs stepped in as the full-time starting quarterback.
Nov 1, 2014; Columbia, SC, USA; Tennessee Volunteers offensive lineman Kyler Kerbyson (77) sings Rocky Top following their overtime win over the South Carolina Gamecocks at Williams-Brice Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Blake-USA TODAY Sports
1. Losing Streaks in Games Trailing by Two Scores or More
It was Joshua Dobbs’s breakout game, if you will. And it was his first game as the full-time starter back in 2014.
When the Vols went on the road against the South Carolina Gamecocks that year, they had not had a comeback after being down by two scores or more since 2007, when they beat the Vanderbilt Commodores 25-24 after trailing 24-9.
After that, any time they fell behind by more than two scores, they lost. And quite honestly, they were never really even close in those games.
But against the Gamecocks in 2014, Dobbs broke the curse in spectacular fashion. Tennessee was trailing 42-28 with under five minutes minutes left to play. And as a sophomore on the road, Dobbs showed just how much of a calm player he can be.
He led the Vols on two scoring drives of 75 and 85 yards respectively with a defensive stop sandwiched in between them.
On the last drive, he took the Vols 85 yards with 1:15 left to play. Tennessee then won the game in overtime, and Dobbs finished with five total touchdowns and 400 total yards. It was his first game as the full-time starter, and he broke out in epic fashion.
Since that game, Tennessee has only lost one game when trailing by two scores. And they are on a five-game winning streak in such games.
Dobbs almost broke the curse the week before by turning a 27-0 Alabama lead into a 34-20 game. The South Carolina game, though, is really what signified the turnaround of the program in Butch Jones’s career. Many Vols fans were not aware at the time that it was only a hint of what was to come.
Nov 29, 2014; Nashville, TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers players celebrate with a team photo after becoming bowl eligible following a win against the Vanderbilt Commodores at Vanderbilt Stadium. The Volunteers won 24-17. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
2. Consecutive Seasons Without Making a Bowl Game
Don’t forget that when Joshua Dobbs took over for the Vols in 2014, they had gone three straight years without making a bowl game. And thanks to a heartbreaking loss to the Florida Gators earlier in the season, this Tennessee football team appeared to be dead in the water at 3-5.
That’s why we say this South Carolina win turned the program around. Dobbs got the Vols on a roll with his play in that game. Had they lost, they would have fallen to 3-6 and missed a bowl game for the fourth consecutive year.
But the win moved them to 4-5, and the next week he dominated a Kentucky Wildcats team to get them to 5-5.
The South Carolina game ended up being crucial because the Vols lost a close one to the Missouri Tigers at home the next week. But Dobbs and Co. rebounded with a hideously ugly 24-17 win over the Vanderbilt Commodores.
Tennessee football fans never thought they’d be celebrating such a win or getting to 6-6, but when you consider how far down the program fell under Derek Dooley, it all made sense. They were going to a bowl game for the first time since 2010, so it was huge for those seniors. And as Jones said, it was another brick in the process.
But the bowl game that year added two more bricks. And we’ll get to both of those bricks on our next two slides.
Jan 2, 2015; Jacksonville, FL, USA; Tennessee Volunteers quarterback Joshua Dobbs (second from left) is congratulated by wide receiver Johnathon Johnson (81) and guard Jashon Robertson (73) and center Mack Crowder (57) and offensive lineman Marcus Jackson (75) after scoring a touchdown in the third quarter of the 2015 TaxSlayer Bowl against the Iowa Hawkeyes at EverBank Field. The Tennessee Volunteers beat the Iowa Hawkeyes 45-28. Mandatory Credit: Phil Sears-USA TODAY Sports
3. Consecutive Seasons With a Losing Record
When the Tennessee Vols entered the TaxSlayer Bowl to take on the Iowa Hawkeyes after the end of the 2014 season, the program had not had a winning season since 2009, Lane Kiffin’s only year there.
It makes sense.
As we already mentioned, they had gone three straight years without making a bowl game. And the one year before that where they did make a bowl game in 2010, they lost in a heartbreaker to the North Carolina Tar Heels.
That was obviously Derek Dooley’s first year as head coach of the program. They thought they had won that game, but the Tar Heels spiked the ball with too many men on the field as time seemed to expire, took the penalty, then kicked a game-tying field goal. That play caused the refs to change the rules and add a 10-second runoff.
So despite making a bowl that year, Tennessee had finished the season 6-7. That made the TaxSlayer Bowl much more crucial.
Tennessee football had a senior class in 2013 that never got to experience a winning season with the program. That was far too unacceptable for its standards, and the curse had to be broken.
Not only did Dobbs break the curse, but he broke it in style with a 45-28 win. That epic win also broke another curse plaguing the Vols at the time, which brings us to our next point. We’ll focus that point on the bowl game itself.
Jan 2, 2015; Jacksonville, FL, USA; Tennessee Volunteers head coach Butch Jones admires the MVP trophy of quarterback Joshua Dobbs (11) after their 2015 TaxSlayer Bowl game against the Iowa Hawkeyes at EverBank Field. The Tennessee Volunteers beat the Iowa Hawkeyes 45-28. Mandatory Credit: Phil Sears-USA TODAY Sports
4. Consecutive Seasons Without a Bowl Win
Entering the new millennium, Tennessee football was tied for third among all college football programs with 22 bowl wins.
Then, going into the 2014 season, they had fallen all the way down to seventh, tied with the Nebraska Cornhuskers and the Florida State Seminoles with only 25 bowl wins. Not only had they only enjoyed three bowl wins the entire millennium, but they also had gone seven years without a bowl victory.
When the Vols entered the TaxSlayer Bowl in 2015, their last victory in a bowl game was on New Year’s Day in 2008, when Erik Ainge led them to a 21-17 victory over the Wisconsin Badgers in the Outback Bowl in his final game in orange.
Of course, Tennessee had only made two bowl games since then in back to back years, 2009 and 2010. But they lost both of them. We already talked about what happened at the end of the 2010 season. But at the end of the 2009 season, caught in the Georgia Dome curse, the Virginia Tech Hokies blew out the Vols in the Peach Bowl.
That was obviously Lane Kiffin’s final game in his only season in Knoxville.
So going into the TaxSlayer Bowl, Joshua Dobbs’s task was not only to get the Vols their first winning season since 2009. It was also to get their first bowl win since Jan. 1, 2008.
He responded by going 16 of 21 for 129 yards and a touchdown along with 13 carries for 76 yards and two more touchdowns. In the process, he was the game’s MVP and secured the 45-28 victory for Tennessee Football. With another bowl win the next year over the Northwestern Wildcats in the Outback Bowl, Tennessee has now moved up to being tied with Texas for sixth in bowl wins with 27.
Oct 10, 2015; Knoxville, TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin (21) celebrates with fans after defeating the Georgia Bulldogs during the second half at Neyland Stadium. Tennessee won 38-31. Mandatory Credit: Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports
5. Losing Streak on CBS Games
The Home Depot’s SEC on CBS is a staple for all college football fans in the South. Verne Lundquist has become synonymous with SEC football since he started doing it in 2000, and Gary Danielson is not far behind with his commentating since 2006.
In the early 2000s, Tennessee football made winning a tradition on that channel. But they eventually began a ridiculous losing streak. Entering the 2015 season, they had not won a game on CBS since 2010 and were in the midst of a six-game losing streak on the channel.
Their last win as the official CBS game of the week came in 2006, when they beat the Alabama Crimson Tide 16-13. After that, they had lost 14 straight in front of Verne and Gary.
The start of the 2015 season only made it worse. Joshua Dobbs and the Vols blew a 27-14 lead against the Florida Gators to lose their 11th straight in that series, their 15th straight in front of Verne and Gary, and their seventh straight on CBS in general.
But two weeks later, with the Vols stuck at 2-3 and possibly en route to another disappointing year, Dobbs turned it around. In front of Lundquist and Danielson, Dobbs built on a streak he ended the previous year and led the Vols on a comeback to beat the Georgia Bulldogs after being down 24-3.
Thanks to Dobbs’s three touchdowns passing, two rushing, and 400 total yards, Tennessee won that game 38-31. They ended their losing streak on CBS, and including that game they have won three of their last four in front of Verne and Gary. That win also ended another huge streak, which brings us to our next point.
Oct 10, 2015; Knoxville, TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers head coach Butch Jones celebrates with his team after defeating the Georgia Bulldogs during the second half at Neyland Stadium. Tennessee won 38-31. Mandatory Credit: Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports
6. Losing streak against rivals
That loss to the Florida Gators on CBS in 2015 did not just extend Tennessee’s losing streak on that channel. It also extended the Tennessee football losing streak to its major rivals.
This was the one that hung over the heads of all Tennessee football fans for years. When Butch Jones inserted Joshua Dobbs into the starting lineup in the second half of the 2014 season, the Vols had a 16-game losing streak against their big three: Florida, Georgia, and Alabama.
On top of that, they had a 10-game losing streak to the Gators, an eight-game losing streak to the Tide, and were 1-21 in their previous 22 games against one of those three teams.
Under Dobbs, that losing streak extended to 17 games after that loss to the Gators. And down 24-3 to the Georgia Bulldogs with a 2-3 record in 2015, that streak was certain to extend to eight games.
But thanks to Dobbs’s comeback, it didn’t.
Sure, they went back to losing against their rivals the next game by falling to the Alabama Crimson Tide. But they still broke that streak. And obviously, he broke it twice more in 2016.
Tennessee exercised that demon with this game, which it had struggled with since 2009. And in the process, the Vols also turned around their season. Dobbs’s play in that game allowed them to go on a roll that they hadn’t enjoyed in years.
Which brings us to our next curse he broke.
Nov 28, 2015; Knoxville, TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers linebacker Curt Maggitt (56) celebrates with teammates after the game against the Vanderbilt Commodores at Neyland Stadium. Tennessee won 53-28. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports
7. Consecutive Seasons With Fewer than Eight Wins
After Joshua Dobbs led the Vols to a huge comeback victory over the Georgia Bulldogs in 2015, he put his team in perfect contention to return back to its old days.
At the time, Tennessee had not won more than seven games since the 2007 season. From 2008 to 2014, they had two seven-win seasons, one six-win season, and four five-win seasons. That’s a standard far below what we should expect from this program.
But thanks to that comeback victory over Georgia, Dobbs had the Vols in perfect position to exercise that demon. After losing the next game to the Alabama Crimson Tide on the road, Tennessee football was 3-4. They didn’t lose again the rest of the year.
Butch Jones made sure his team ran the table against the teams they were supposed to, blowing out the Kentucky Wildcats and North Texas Mean Green, scoring a close win over the South Carolina Gamecocks, and getting a solid victory over the Missouri Tigers. At 7-4 and on Senior Day, the Vols had climbed back into the national conversation after falling off the radar.
Then they closed out the regular season with a dominating victory over the Vanderbilt Commodores. The win pushed Tennessee’s record to 8-4, it’s first season with more than seven wins since 2007. They also moved up to a second place finish in the SEC East, just where they were predicted to finish at the start of the year.
And for a team that began the year in the bottom part of the Top 25, they were close to meeting their exact expectations.
All they had to do for that was get to nine wins, which they did with their Outback Bowl victory over the Northwestern Wildcats. That ended another curse.
Jan 1, 2016; Tampa, FL, USA; Tennessee Volunteers quarterback Joshua Dobbs (11) is congratulated by head coach Butch Jones and running back coach Robert Gillespie as he scores a touchdown against the Northwestern Wildcats during the second half in the 2016 Outback Bowl at Raymond James Stadium. Tennessee Volunteers defeated the Northwestern Wildcats 45-6. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
8. Consecutive Seasons Without a Top 25 Finish
After breaking that drought of fewer than eight wins with the Vanderbilt victory, Tennessee’s only obstacle into accomplishing its goal of 2015 was winning the Outback Bowl over the 10-2 Northwestern Wildcats.
Doing that would assure the Vols a 9-4 record, their best since 2007, and it would also assure their first Top 25 finish since 2007. That Top 25 drought was a huge deal, and with the Vols beginning the season ranked No. 25 in both polls, finishing with that win would assure that they met expectations.
Dobbs made sure his team responded.
Just like the previous year, he led the Vols to a blowout victory over a Big Ten team in a New Year’s Day bowl game. Only this time, it meant a heck of a lot more.
With the win, the Vols finished the 2015 season ranked No. 22 in the AP Poll and No. 23 in the Coaches Poll. They finally got that elusive Top 25 finish.
Sure, they had been ranked in the Top 25 at times since 2007, including the preseason in 2008, Week Three in 2012, and the first two weeks of 2015. But those rankings mean nothing if you don’t earn them.
Tennessee earned this ranking with their performance. And just like the previous year, Dobbs’s play was a huge part of it with 166 passing yards and 48 rushing yards along with two rushing touchdowns.
That ranking was another brick in the process that put the Vols in perfect position to do what they’ve done so far this year.
And that brings us to our next point.
Sep 24, 2016; Knoxville, TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers quarterback Joshua Dobbs (11) runs the ball against the Florida Gators during the second quarter at Neyland Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports
9. Tennessee’s 11-Game Losing Streak to the Florida Gators
Well this one was obviously going to be on there. Hovering over the Tennessee football program since 2010 was a ridiculously long losing streak to the Gators. Of course, it was acceptable up to that point, but the Vols began losing to Florida in years that they were a much better team.
It all bottomed out after two straight one-point losses in 2014 and 2015, and it got to the point where fans thought they’d never win the series. As Dobbs began to turn that season around and exercise all the previous demons we’ve mentioned, this was the biggest one going into 2016.
Tennessee had to end this losing streak to be able to accomplish anything it wanted, and there would be no more brick until they did that.
But at Neyland Stadium, the Vols fell behind to the Gators early 21-0. And for everybody in Knoxville, it was ‘here we go again!’ Except this time it was different.
Dobbs and the Vols had already exercised the rivalry demon, the deficit demon, and the CBS demon. They just had to put it all together.
And in a second half for the ages, the Vols turned a 21-3 deficit into a 38-21 lead, their largest lead over the Gators since 1992. Dobbs threw for four touchdowns and 319 yards while rushing for another 80 yards and another touchdown. It was one of the greatest performances by a Tennessee football quarterback ever against Florida.
And it exercised the biggest demon that the Vols were facing. To a lesser scale, it also exercised two unimportant jinxes in Checker Neyland and College GameDay being in Knoxville. But if you thought Dobbs couldn’t top himself, he did just that this past week.
Oct 1, 2016; Athens, GA, USA; Tennessee Volunteers quarterback Joshua Dobbs (11) is lifted in the air by defensive back Todd Kelly Jr. (24) after throwing the winning touchdown pass on the last play on the game against the Georgia Bulldogs during the fourth quarter at Sanford Stadium. Tennessee defeated Georgia 34-31. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
10. Losing Streak to Ranked Teams on the Road
In his first year as Tennessee football’s head coach, Butch Jones already inherited a program on a 16-game losing streak to ranked teams and an eight-game losing streak on the road.
His first team extended that losing streak to 19 games against ranked teams and 12 games on the road. But he broke them in succession. It started with a 23-21 win over the South Carolina Gamecocks at home. They were ranked No. 11 at the time. Then his team had a 27-14 win over the Kentucky Wildcats in the final game of the season on the road. That exercised both demons.
But they still had not yet beaten a ranked team on the road since the Georgia Bulldogs in Athens in 2006. That losing streak would continue in 2014 and 2015. In fact, they had lost 23 straight games to ranked teams on the road.
This was a huge departure from the Vols in the first half of the decade, when they scored a road victory over a ranked team every year from 1998 to 2006 except for 2002. And in seven of those nine years, they had beaten a Top 10 team on the road.
But a 51-33 win in Athens in 2006 would be the last one for a decade, until they went back to Athens this past weekend.
Just like Florida, Dobbs was in the process of doing everything he had done to exercise previous demons. He led the Vols back from 17 points down against the Georgia Bulldogs, helped them take a late fourth-quarter lead, and did it in front of a CBS audience.
But this was all done on the road. However, Georgia outdid him with a 47-yard touchdown pass with 10 seconds left. That’s when Dobbs showed that exercising these demons was bringing true magic to the program.
He threw the now-famous Hail Mary pass with four seconds left to give the Vols a 34-31 victory. That Hail Mary was the exclamation point of all these demons exercised.
It was on CBS, against a rival, against a ranked team, and in the midst of a huge comeback. This was the final piece.
Dobbs has now done everything except beat Alabama, beat an SEC West team, and win a title. Those are the last two things on the list. However, at the rate he’s going, he could do both.
Heck, beating Alabama in the SEC title game would exercise all three at once. So would going undefeated.
We’ll have to wait and see if he can do it. But through 23 games since he took over in 2014, he has accomplished a lot.
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