10 years later UT still has title hopes

On opening day, they were the 10th-ranked team in the nation, but given little chance of even winning the SEC East. Florida was seemingly an impassable roadblock.

They had talent, to be sure. But a more dominant theme was the talent they no longer had. Peyton Manning was one of 10 starters gone from the 1997 SEC champion team.

And yet when the 1998 college football season climaxed in the Arizona desert, Tennessee was the national champion, a perfect 13-0.

How did it happen?

That explanation is a happy story for Tennessee and its fans, forever worth retelling.

The other relevant question, 10 years in the making, is:

Can it ever happen again?

Talk to a coach, talk to a player and the answer is unequivocally the same: Absolutely. Why not?

"We've got to get our own,'' said junior linebacker Rico McCoy. "We're part of the UT family but we had nothing to do with that. We need something for ourselves.''

McCoy was 11 when Tennessee beat Florida State 23-16 in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 4,1999. That the 2008 season marks the passing of a decade since that memorable journey is not lost on UT fans or the media as Phillip Fulmer enters his 16th year as head coach.

Reflecting on the days leading up to his sixth season, Fulmer recalls a tantalizing air of cautious optimism.

"I thought we'd be pretty good,'' he said recently, "but you never know who's going to win the national championship.

"You don't have a crystal ball.''

In the end, the Vols in fact did have a crystal football, the Sears Trophy.

As with any season in any sport, a variety of factors and fate lined up just right to put the Vols in position to snatch the coveted trophy.

Filling the talent pool

The '98 Vols required rebuilding. Leonard Little, Terry Fair and Jonathan Brown left significant holes on defense. Marcus Nash had just had the best season ever by a UT receiver.

Then there was Manning, the first choice in the NFL draft after rewriting school passing records.

In the late 1990s, however, Tennessee was at the height of its recruiting power. As one star left, another was waiting.

From 1994 to 1997, UT's recruiting classes annually ranked between first and eighth nationally. Twenty-eight members of the 1998 champions played in the NFL, 15 of them selected in the top three rounds. Twelve were still playing in 2007.

Only six of the '98 starters were Tennesseans. The Vols were able to raid neighboring states, notably Georgia, which also contributed six starters.

Assistant coach Rodney Garner was at UT for only two years, 1996-97, but had the golden touch to land Jamal Lewis, Cosey Coleman and Deon Grant from Georgia.

The entire front four on defense was a Carolina Connection: Shaun Ellis, Darwin Walker, Jeff Coleman and Corey Terry.

Recruiting has gotten harder in the 21st Century. Two of the past four UT signing classes were ranked in the top five nationally, but the other two were 23rd and 35th, respectively, according to Rivals.com.

With the 2001 arrival of Mark Richt at the University of Georgia, it grew more difficult for UT to plunder blue-chippers - unless they happened to be the son of a former Vol, like Eric Berry.

South Carolina's program was dreary in the mid-to-late '90s, helping Tennessee poach some of the best and brightest. With Steve Spurrier on board, that is no longer the case.

Perhaps it's no coincidence that in 2008, the demographics have changed a bit. Ten of UT's 24 projected starters are in-state products. Only three are from Georgia.

Intangibles

The staff realized early on that the '98 team had a different feel. The elders were chafing from their Orange Bowl mauling by Nebraska to end the '97 season.

"I don't know if I could say we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the Orange Bowl, but it had a big part to it,'' said linebacker Al Wilson prior to the national championship game.

Wilson deservedly is credited as one of the great motivators in UT history, but he wasn't the only one.

"Our players took a real challenge during that offseason from the number of high-profile guys that were drafted or graduated,'' Fulmer said, "that a lot of people thought they weren't going to be nearly as good.

"I think they rallied around Tee Martin, him being the centerpiece, trying to replace somebody that had accomplished all Peyton had accomplished.''

Martin, the junior who would follow Manning, was more than a rallying point. He was a leader in his own right.

"He had kind of stayed in the background when Peyton came back (for his senior year in '97),'' Fulmer said, "but Tee and I had a long conversation about his role and being ready.

"He did an unbelievable job of that and then took the team by the reins his junior year.''

Martin, in a recent interview, recalled a team that was weary of playing second fiddle to Florida.

"Florida had been winning so many years,'' Martin said. "We had to beat Florida. We all committed to that in the offseason and it carried over into the regular season.''

Johnny Long has worked in the UT weight room since 1994. He noticed something different leading up to the '98 season.

"You could see,'' Long recalled, "during the throwing, the weight workouts, that it started to take place that not giving your best wasn't accepted for that team.

"That was a hungry team.''

Every team, of course, claims to be hungry, but the '98 team walked the walk.

Is there another Al Wilson out there today? That's a tough standard to meet.

But there is a junior quarterback waiting to take the reins. From all appearances, Jonathan Crompton is acting like a leader.

"This team has a little swagger to them,'' Long said. "I'm not saying that's going to mean a national championship but I like the swagger this team carries.''

The lay of the land

Heading into 1998, Florida was the SEC kingpin. South Carolina was terrible. Georgia was on the way back from a prolonged swoon.

LSU was down, Auburn struggled and Alabama was mediocre. Arkansas and Mississippi State were the best of the West.

"I think the SEC has gotten a little tougher than it was in '98,'' defensive coordinator John Chavis said.

"It's more competitive, if you can imagine that, from top to bottom. It's tougher to get out of the SEC.''

Indeed, the caliber of coaching may be the best it's ever been in the SEC, and there's a Heisman Trophy-winner returning at Florida.

But if you can get out of the SEC the sky is the limit. LSU has won two national titles and Florida one in the past five years.

Every championship team gets breaks somewhere along the line. The '98 Vols got theirs, Clint Stoerner's fumble being the most celebrated.

"That's part of winning,'' said Chavis, "but I'm not talking about getting lucky. You've got to put yourself in those situations where you create those breaks.''

Tennessee did. It kept finding a way to win while the nine teams ahead of it in the preseason poll did not.

The Vols were up to No. 4 by the end of September, to No. 2 by the first week of November and took over No. 1 on Nov. 9 when Ohio State was upset.

On Dec. 7, the night UT won the SEC Championship Game, Kansas State and UCLA, the only other undefeated contenders, fell, eliminating any possibility of the Vols somehow being maneuvered out of the title game.

It's not that the '98 Vols didn't get some bad breaks, too. They lost Jamal Lewis after four games to a blown knee. Wilson missed three games. Still, on the whole it was a healthy season.

The biggest key was Martin. While UT had Travis Henry and Travis Stephens to replace Lewis, Martin's backup was untested, unheralded Burney Veazey.

"We may go to the single-wing if we lose Tee,'' Fulmer said at SEC Media Days.

No one ever found out whether he was joking.

A championship formula

Martin stayed healthy, but struggled in the passing game early. The second half of a 22-3 win at undefeated Georgia on Oct. 12 was a turning point.

"We made a conscious effort we had to do better offensively if we were going to win the rest of our games,'' said Fulmer. "We kind of came out of our shell and let Tee do his thing.''

Tennessee had a couple of safety nets until Martin got up to speed.

The defense was good. Really good. The Vols allowed only 14.6 points a game and created 36 turnovers.

Furthermore, the running game was relentless, averaging an SEC-leading 211 yards per game. Three different backs had 100-yard games.

The big-play element was present in the person of receiver Peerless Price. Not to be overlooked, Shawn Bryson was an unusual weapon at fullback. He averaged 9.5 yards per carry and caught a pass in 11 of 13 games.

"Shawn Bryson was unbelievably unselfish,'' Fulmer said, "because he could have been a tailback.''

And in Jeff Hall, Tennessee had a senior kicker who was money in the bank under pressure.

There's no specific reason Tennessee could not assemble a similar array of weapons again, but recent history suggests the program has strayed from its championship formula.

Over the past three seasons, Tennessee has averaged a mere 125.3 rushing yards per game. Over those same three seasons, the Vols have allowed an average of 22.1 points a game.

Still connected?

Most Tennessee fans can still quote chapter and verse about the championship season. Besides Fulmer, three assistant coaches are still on the staff who wear the ring: Chavis, Dan Brooks and Steve Caldwell.

In the locker room, the link is more abstract. The current players were in middle or even elementary school in 1998.

Britton Colquitt was 13, growing up in Knoxville.

"We still think about it,'' he said.

"We don't talk about it as much as we talk about winning a Southeastern Conference, or even the East. Because if you win the conference, or even the East, you've got a good shot to go to the national championship.''

But though the details may be a little fuzzy, the national championship is still a presence for a new generation of Vols.

"When somebody is slacking,'' said McCoy, "you're going to let 'em know: 'Get on your job. Look at this old banner.'

"It's normally not a good conversation if you're talking about that 1998 banner.''

Winning a national championship banner is a daunting task for any program. In some ways it seems more daunting for Tennessee now than it was in 1998.

The Vols have mounted only one threat in the interim. An upset in the 2001 SEC Championship Game cost them a shot at playing for a national title.

In the eight seasons since UT's most recent BCS bowl appearance - a Fiesta Bowl loss to Nebraska after the 1999 season - 33 schools have played in BCS bowls. Georgia and Florida have played in three each. Even Illinois has played in two.

The inescapable conclusion is that the Vols have lost some of their 1990s buzz as an elite national program.

On the other hand, neither the administration, coaches nor players have lost any of their commitment toward trying to win national championships.

Linebacker Nick Reveiz was 10 years old in 1998. He had to be restrained by his dad, Fuad Reveiz, from running on the field after UT beat Florida in overtime.

"I was at every home game,'' Nick said. "Whenever we come in the weight room now, every rep, every extra set, that's geared toward winning a national championship.

"It's still very alive in me.''

Tee Martin is a living reminder that surprising things can happen when resources and motivation merge - and catch a break or two, as all champions do.

"There's great talent across the board in the SEC,'' Martin said. "But I look at what everyone else has and what Tennessee has and I really feel good about what we have here.''

He sees no reason why Tennessee couldn't hang another banner in the near future if the stars were to align just so.

Wishful thinking? Maybe. But keep in mind: No one expected his team would hang one in 1998, either.

Mike Strange may be reached at 865-342-6276 or strangem@knoxnews.com.