Instant Analysis: Tennessee-Kentucky

It took almost five hours, but the wait was worth it for Philip Fulmer. At the end of a regular season in which his credentials were questioned, his team was emotionally abandoned, and his job security was placed in doubt by some, the national championship coach won the SEC East. While Urban Meyer and Mark Richt will sit home, Fulmer’s Vols will compete for the SEC title against LSU.

In a year when Lloyd Carr—another national title-winning coach—received an ungodly amount of heat from his own fan base at Michigan, Fulmer received similar treatment in Knoxville. The climate around the Tennessee program was so negative that fans could be seen exiting Neyland Stadium in the fourth quarter of a game against South Carolina in which the Vols didn’t even trail. (Tennessee was tied at 24 with the Gamecocks late in regulation, before winning in overtime by a field goal.) While Florida and Tim Tebow thrilled the nation, and Georgia stormed the palace gate in a dominating second half of its season, lil’ ol’ Tennessee—led by Fulmer, running back Arian Foster, quarterback Erik Ainge, and linebacker Jerod Mayo—surprised everyone (even Vol fans) by completing the journey to Atlanta and winning college football’s most balanced and competitive division.

The final leg of this journey to the Georgia Dome was as arduous as anything the Vols have experienced all year. Foster, Ainge and Mayo—the star performers who needed to shine against a talented Kentucky club—all brought their best stuff to the table, but in addition to several expected performances, the Vols—as has been the case on so many occasions in the Fulmer era, made special plays on special teams.

A week ago, the heroics of Dennis Rogan—as a returner and a cover man—enabled the Vols to stay in the hunt for the SEC East and squeak by Vanderbilt. This week against the snake-bitten Wildcats—who still haven’t beaten the Children of the Checkerboard since 1984—Tennessee triumphed because the Vols were able to block a game-winning Kentucky field goal at the end of the second overtime inning. That one bit of special-teams brilliance enabled the Vols to survive, and when UK quarterback Andre Woodson got stuffed on a game-tying two-point attempt in the fourth overtime, the celebration was on. Against considerable odds, Tennessee won a division that had been led by everyone but Vanderbilt at some point in this crazy 2007 season.

Phil Fulmer has certainly fielded more dominant teams than this 2007 edition. The longest-tenured active coach at a single SEC school has experienced greater glories on the gridiron, and plucked more fabulous prizes in past years. But when Fulmer looks back on this season—a season that now has one extra game on its schedule—he’ll fondly recall the 2007 Vols as a team that persevered to a remarkable degree, winning games it had no business winning all because of sheer willpower. On a dramatic and very long day in Lexington, a coach and his resilient team fashioned one of the more heartwarming moments in Tennessee’s storied football history.