Four Major Tennessee Sports Make School History

Is this the best year in Tennessee Athletics history? There's definitely a case to be made.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – UT athletics teams have achieved a lot in the past year. Tennessee football reached a bowl game in year one under Josh Heupel, the Lady Vols basketball team reached the Sweet Sixteen for the first time in six years, UT soccer won the SEC, the men’s hoops team won the SEC Tournament, and the top-ranked BaseVols are on track to have the best season in program history.

Tennessee athletics are on the rise as we near the end of UT’s first year under Athletic Director Danny White. But one could argue that rise isn’t the right word. One could argue that this athletic season has been the best Tennessee has ever been.

That argument holds water.

Looking at the four major sports of men’s and women’s basketball, football and baseball, the University of Tennessee has won 48 SEC games in the regular season this athletic year (start of football season to now). Tennessee baseball still has nine SEC games to be played this season, but 48 regular-season conference wins across the four major sports is already the record for most SEC wins by UT athletics in a given school year.

This season bests all years from 1982-1983 to the present, as the Lady Vols first SEC game was played in the ‘82-’83 season.

Baseball plays the most games, so they carry the load with 19 wins (so far). Men’s and women’s basketball recorded 14 and 11 wins, respectively, and UT football had four in year one of the Heupel era.

While UT baseball is a significant reason why Tennessee has accumulated so many SEC wins this year, the BaseVols are still five conference wins away from the program record. So this isn’t quite the best year in Tennessee baseball yet. The program had 24 SEC wins in 1994 as part of Tennessee’s 44 conference wins in the 1993-1994 year, which is one of the best seasons in UT Athletics history. Football went 7-1 in the conference, the Lady Vols were an undefeated 11-0, but the final year of Wade Houston’s BasketVols posted an abysmal 2-14 in the conference to put a damper on an (at the time) historic year.

This year’s Tennessee teams broke the record after Vol baseball’s sweep over Florida two series ago, besting the previous record of 45 SEC wins held by the quartet of Big Orange teams in the 2007-2008 and 2000-2001 seasons. Tennessee was fairly balanced in the ‘07-’08 season other than baseball, as football gained six SEC wins and men’s and women’s basketball combined for 27 wins, but baseball recorded a mere 12. In ‘00-’01, baseball had an above average year with 18 SEC wins, football had a normal season with five conference victories, and Pat Summitt’s Lady Vols were an undefeated 14-0 in the league, but men’s basketball brought up the rear with an 8-8 conference record to keep the school at 45 SEC wins.

Tennessee athletics also had a great athletic year in 2004-2005 with 44 SEC wins. Baseball went 18-11 in the SEC and ultimately reached the College World Series, football posted seven conference wins, the Lady Vols went 13-1, but men’s basketball once again kept the win total in the mid-40s with a 6-10 conference record.

It’s important to note that Tennessee’s main four groups will have played 72 SEC games when baseball finishes its season this year, a number that was not collectively reached by the four teams until the 2012-2013 season when the men’s basketball team added two more games to their SEC schedule due to the conference’s expansion to 14 teams. The four teams played a combined 68 games for most of the late ’90s and 2000s.

However, the four teams have only played 63 SEC games up to this point, and they broke the record in 60 games. The 60th game was Tennessee’s 6-4 series sweeping victory over the Florida Gators in extra innings in Gainesville, making the Vols’ SEC history-making comeback victory stand out even more.

Additional Note: Lady Vols' conference schedule has expanded multiple times since the team started playing SEC teams in 1982-83, expanding in ‘85-’86 (9 games), ‘91-’92 (11 games), ‘96-’97 (12 games), ‘97-’98 (14 games), ‘09-’10 (16 games)

This season, UT’s four major sports have a chance to get 57 SEC wins and are likely to get at least in the mid-50s with how Tennessee baseball has performed. The four squads have not brought a championship to Rocky Top yet this school year, but the last time they accumulated 45 or more SEC wins, Pat Summitt’s Lady Vols won a National Championship. It’s up to Tony Vitello’s BaseVols to see if some sort of gold comes to Knoxville, but if anything is certain in UT athletics this year, Tennessee baseball has the talent and capability to make a deep Omaha run.

Regardless, the outlook for Tennessee's four big  sports is arguably at a collective all-time high in school history, especially considering the four programs have already accumulated a record-breaking 48 SEC wins. 

The four sports currently sit at 100 combined total wins this season after Tennessee baseball's midweek win over Alabama A&M. The record for most combined wins among the four teams (including postseason) in a given athletic year is 107 by the 1994-1995 season, meaning the BaseVols need eight wins out of their remaining 11 regular season games and postseason matchups to break the record. 

Which will happen. 

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Photo Credit: Calvin Mattheis Knoxville News Sentinel