Adams: Bowl bid would be a big deal this year

Tennessee football has a recent history of sudden turnarounds.

After the 1988 team stumbled through a 5-6 season, the Vols rebounded to win 11 of 12 games in their next season. Following a 5-6 season in 2005, the next team bounced back to go 9-4.

Combine that history with all the enthusiasm engendered by first-year coach Lane Kiffin and his staff, and UT fans have reason to be optimistic about the upcoming season. Surprisingly, that optimism isn't fostering unrealistic expectations.

Most UT fans envision improvement from last year's 5-7 disaster. But I haven't heard of anyone making plans for the SEC championship game in Atlanta.

And if they're conscientious enough planners to make bowl reservations six months in advance, they probably have rooms in Memphis and Nashville, not in New Orleans or Florida.

The lowered expectations could make this one of the most enjoyable UT seasons in recent years. A winning season and bowl bid - once taken for granted - could be celebrated.

Since UT won a national championship in 1998, how many seasons have actually been celebrated?

The 1999 season was a disappointment as soon as the Vols lost to Florida. A team that had enough talent to repeat as national champions later lost to Arkansas and was overwhelmed by Nebraska in the fourth quarter of the Fiesta Bowl.

Bowl losses like that occurred more and more often in the last decade of the Phillip Fulmer era, and those post-season defeats invariably obliterated the goodwill built over the regular season.

The 2000 team struggled to a 2-3 start before winning its last six regular-season games. Just when Vols fans were encouraged about the direction of their program, UT was overwhelmed by Kansas State in the Cotton Bowl.

Back-to-back bowl losses to Maryland and Clemson, respectively, following the 2002 and 2003 seasons, had a similar impact on UT fans. So did the Outback Bowl loss to Penn State after the 2006 season.

In the last 10 years, UT fans probably felt really good about their program at the end of two of those seasons - first, after the Vols routed Michigan in the Florida Citrus Bowl to cap an 11-2 season in 2001, and three years later when UT pulled out narrow victories over Kentucky and Vanderbilt to win the SEC East, then thrashed Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl.

UT fans might not need a bowl victory to be encouraged this season. Improvement would be enough, especially if the freshmen from Kiffin's first recruiting class make significant strides over the course of the season.

You can't necessarily measure those strides in the won-lost record. For example, consider Kiffin's football powerhouse role model, Southern California, where he was an assistant under Pete Carroll.

Like Kiffin, Carroll took over a program that had gone 5-7 the previous season. His first team lost five of its first seven games, won its last four regular-season games and lost to Utah in the Las Vegas Bowl.

Since then, USC hasn't won fewer than 11 games in a season.

Nick Saban started similarly at Alabama, going 7-6 in 2007 on the heels of a seven-loss season that cost Mike Shula his job. A year later, the Tide went 12-0 before losing to Florida in the SEC championship game.

I'm not suggesting anything of that magnitude at UT. Both Carroll and Saban took over programs that had considerably more talent on hand. After a transitional year, that talent came to the forefront.

Kiffin isn't that fortunate. He doesn't have a quarterback like USC's Carson Palmer on campus or an offensive lineman like Alabama's Andre Smith. Aside from a few exceptions, he will have to recruit his best players.

So this turnaround won't be as sudden. But it still can be enjoyable.

Sports editor John Adams may be reached at 865-342-6284 or adamsj@knoxnews.com.

© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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