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Sunday, Nov. 23, 2008

It is possible for UK to beat Tennessee

History proves Vols' 23-year party doesn't have to last forever

The Kentucky-Tennessee rivalry?

A joke.

Same team winning every year.

Across many years of UK-UT border battles, people wondered if there would EVER be another win for ...

Tennessee?

Those born after Nov. 24, 1984 — the most recent time Kentucky beat Tennessee at football — will have to take my word on this.

When it came to matchups between the Wildcats and the Volunteers in the major sports, there was a time when the Blue boys could barely lose for winning.

Last winter, while researching Kentucky's 1958 NCAA basketball champions, I stumbled across the following in a sports column from the March 3, 1958, Lexington Herald.

Knoxville folks are wondering if the worm will ever turn. Since the Vols beat UK's Cotton Bowl football team in November 1951, Kentucky and Tennessee have met 23 times in football and basketball.

The Wildcats have won 21 times, gained a tie on another occasion and have lost only once.

Kentuckians love it but Tennesseans are getting tired of seeing the Big Blue carry off all the laurels.

My reaction to finding that old newspaper item could best be described as doing a Jack Buck.

I don't believe what I just saw.

I came to work for the Lexington newspaper in 1990. In that time, I've never seen a UK win against UT on a football field. It's now 23 games since anyone has seen Kentucky beat Tennessee at football.

Yet for a stretch of the 1950s, Adolph Rupp's basketball Cats went a tidy 15-0 against the Orange.

During the same period, UK football — with Blanton Collier coaching Kentucky for all but one of its victories — went 6-1-1 against the Vols.

"It was amazing," says Kay Collier-McLaughlin, the middle of Blanton and Mary Forman Collier's three daughters. "Beating Tennessee meant so much to Kentuckians.

"The energy before those games and at those games and after those games, it was incredible."

Commercial flights to Mars seem more likely than another prolonged period of Kentucky football dominance over the Rocky Toppers.

So I asked Collier-McLaughlin, who wrote a biography of her father, Football's Gentle Giant: The Blanton Collier Story, what she remembered from her Dad's days as a Big Orange killer.

"The Beer Barrel exchange used to be an amazing thing," she said of the symbol that used to go annually to the UK-UT winner. "After we'd won several years in a row, Tennessee got frustrated and would try to steal it.

"So, the week of the game, the job of the UK freshmen was to guard the Beer Barrel."

To put in perspective how unique in Kentucky football history was Blanton Collier's hold over Tennessee, consider:

■ In his tenure at Kentucky, Bear Bryant went 1-5-2 against Tennessee. Collier, Bryant's successor, went 5-2-1.

■ Since UK axed Collier after the 1961 season, Kentucky has only beaten Tennessee in football six times.

After Lexington, Collier went on to coach the Cleveland Browns to the 1964 NFL championship.

He remains the last head football coach at Kentucky to leave the school with a winning record (41-36-3). Collier died in 1983.

Those who believe in karma see UK's continuing futility against Tennessee as payback for dismissing the only coach in modern times who could consistently beat the hated Volunteers.

"People have said that to me over and over and over again," says Collier-McLaughlin.

Last year, I really thought was the year that Andre Woodson and Co. were going to end Kentucky's embarrassing losing streak to Tennessee.

Instead, it will forever be seared into the soul of The Long Suffering UK Football Fan how that four-overtime epic ended.

So, this season, The Streak stands at 23 and counting as Rich Brooks and Co. head to Knoxville. The Cats will face the worst Tennessee team in memory Saturday in what will be Phillip Fulmer's final game as the Big Orange.

As bad as Tennessee is, I just don't see it this year for a struggling UK.

I fear The Streak is destined to live to see 24.

Maybe UK fans in Neyland Stadium can chant 1950s! 1950s!

Hey, it's something.

Reach Mark Story at (859) 231-3230 or (800) 950-6397, Ext. 3230, or mstory@herald-leader.com. Your e-mail could appear on the blog Read Mark Story's E-mail on Kentucky.com.