re: Would you be in favor of a 10-Game SEC Schedule?

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but they are still a historical power that will eventually be good again.

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I'll take "Things People Said back in 2008", Alex.

In terms of Big 6 status, Tennessee is literally living off of accomplishments under General Neyland.

Everyone wants to act like the current state of Vol football is the anomaly. But in actuality, the Peyton Manning years and the few seasons that followed in his wake were the true anomaly.

From 1973-1994, Tennessee played 22 seasons of football and had just THREE Top 10 finishes.

From 1995-2001, Tennessee played 7 seasons of football and had SIX Top 10 finishes.

From 2002-2019, Tennessee has played 18 seasons of football and have had ZERO Top 10 Finishes.

So if you take away a relatively short 7-year period from 1995-2001, Tennessee has bookend periods spanning 40 seasons that produced just three teams that finished in the TOP 10. This just happens to coincide with Integration so there appears to be a root cause.

The late 1990s were the true anomaly. Why does everyone keep on forcing themselves to pretend that the height of the Fulmer era was something normal for Tennessee? It wasn't.

Tennessee will never be on the same level as The other Big 5 for a sustained period of time. It's just not going to happen no matter how much folks want to pretend.