1997 SEC Champion Vols Celebrate 20th Anniversary

Champs reunited. #GBO pic.twitter.com/odcTAAb31t
— Tennessee Football (@Vol_Football) November 21, 2017

By Wyeth Wilson
UTSports.com

Twenty years after its SEC Championship winning season, the 1997 Tennessee football team reunited in Knoxville to celebrate and remember its 11-2 season.

Former Tennessee head coach and current special advisor to the UT President Phillip Fulmer, Vol greats such as Peyton Manning, Al Wilson, Deon Grant, Leonard Little, and many more were all honored at Neyland Stadium during Tennessee's game against LSU on Saturday.

"Everyone wanted the same thing (in 1997)," Wilson said. "We wanted to win. We competed every day. I've always said that '97 season practice was harder than the games for us because we were going against Peyton and Jamal (Lewis), Marcus Nash and Peerless (Price) and those guys. So when we got in the game, things slowed down for us. Going against Peyton and those guys, it allowed the team to come together (through) competition. Once we started winning, we wanted it every week."

The team that included seven eventual All-Americans, 27 eventual NFL Draft picks, and two College Football Hall of Famers tallied wins over UCLA, Georgia and Alabama, and an SEC Championship Game win over Auburn in a season that ended with an Orange Bowl berth.

Though the 1997 season ended with an SEC Championship and a double-digit win total for the third consecutive season, an early season loss to Florida threatened to derail the season.

Instead, the Vols rattled off nine straight wins by an average of nearly 16 points per game after their loss to the Gators.

"We knew we were just a better football team," Wilson said. "We gave it away.

"We knew we were the team to beat in the SEC. We just made sure we played throughout the season and made people understand Tennessee was for real."

Added Fulmer: "Real disappointment. But (we) stayed the course, had nine wins in a row, and Florida didn't. So we had a chance to go play for the (SEC Championship) and play a really good Auburn team."

The SEC Championship Game against then 11th-ranked Auburn, Tennessee's first ever appearance in the conference title game, was a microcosm of the 1997 season as a whole, as third-ranked Tennessee fought back from a 13-point deficit to win the game, 30-29.

The 1997 season came to a close with a loss to eventual co-national champion Nebraska in the Orange Bowl, but set the stage for bigger things in 1998.

"We don't win the '98 national championship (without the 1997 team)," former Vol defensive back Fred White said. "It didn't happen just from that one year.

"It was a buildup to get to that point. That's the thing I think people don't understand. It doesn't happen in a year. You cannot win a national championship in one year. It takes time to build that. To build that leadership in your guys and the attitude to win in your guys."

According to former Vols, a large part of what made the 1997 team so special was the close, family sense of the team as a whole.

"I think we hated losing more than we liked winning," Little said. "Coach Fulmer brought those types of guys in.

"But at the end of the day, we're going off the field and hanging out with each other. He preached a family atmosphere and we really took that to heart. I went home to Jackson, Tennessee (with teammates), I went to Georgia with Fred. It bonded us as a team. It made it easier on Saturdays when we went out there and played."

Added Fulmer: "It's what family is about. And they were very much a family."

University of Tennessee Athletics

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