It was 10 years ago this season when Tennessee Football decided to rekindle a series that was very common before the modern era of the sport. The Vols, in Butch Jones’ second year, faced the Chattanooga Mocs for the first time since 1969 to that point. They won 45-10.
When UT hosts Chattanooga Saturday, it’ll be the third matchup since they rekindled the series. The Vols faced them in 2019 and won 45-0. Momentum for this game will be significantly higher, though, than it was for the previous two games.
Rocky Top was 0-2 with losses to the BYU Cougars and Georgia State Panthers going into their last matchup between these two schools. When they first rekindled it, Tennessee Football was 2-3 and on a three-game losing streak.
The program was in a similar place it was at when this series first began…irrelevant. Yes, the Vols and Chattanooga go far, far back, before anybody ever knew what UT would become. These two faced off way back in 1892, with the Vols winning 16-6.
At the time, they were called the Chattanooga Athletic Club. This was just the second win in Tennessee Football history, following their season-opening win over Maryville that year. The only opponent the Vols have played the last 100 years that they faced before Chattanooga was the Vanderbilt Commodores.
From that 1892 game on, UT and Chattanooga met 41 more times all the way until 1969. They faced off every year from 1945 to 1964. Most notably, though, every single perfect regular season for the Vols or one in which they claim a national title, involved a matchup with Chattanooga before 1998.
In 1896, their first season after the lost years, Rocky Top faced Chattanooga in the second game of the year, winning 4-0 en route to a 4-0 season that saved the football program. Then came 1914, their first championship season in which they went 9-0 and won the SIAA with Zora G. Clevenger. UT beat the Mocs 67-0.
Then from 1938 to 1940, Tennessee Football went perfectevery regular season and played Chattanooga all three years, winning a combined 126-0. In 1951, they beat Chattanooga 42-13. Even in 1950, a season they claim a national title, the Vols beat them 41-0.
It hasn’t all been roses for the Vols and the Mocs, though. UT did suffer an upset loss to this team in 1958. That was part of the wildest season in school history, one in which they beat three ranked teams but finished 4-6-1 with losses to three unranked teams, including Chattanooga.
All time, though, Tennessee Football leads the series with Chattanooga 40-2-2. That 1958 game is the only one since 1910 that they didn’t win outright. Obviously, these are totally different programs, but the history between them is rich. That history returns Saturday.
