It has been almost 20 years, and former Florida quarterback Jesse Palmer can still picture the first time he experienced Tennessee week in practice.
“Rocky Top” blared on the practice field. Scout team quarterback Tim Olmstead emerged from the locker room in a Peyton Manning uniform, right down to the replica facemask. This was the height of Steve Spurrier vs. Phillip Fulmer era, and there was only one way to describe it.
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"It was huge,” Palmer told Sporting News. “It was massive because there was so much riding on that game. There was so much pressure going into the matchup because you knew the loser would be behind the eight ball in the SEC East."
That’s the standard a Gators quarterback encounters during Tennessee week. Florida is 15-4 against the Volunteers since 1997, including an ongoing 11-game win streak. Palmer felt it. Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow felt it a decade later.
Austin Appleby will feel it Saturday when No. 19 Florida travels to play No. 14 Tennessee at Neyland Stadium: Appleby is the starter now, after a knee injury knocked Luke Del Rio out last week. Backups Feleipe Franks and Kyle Trask have been more involved in practice this week as well.
Nobody’s wearing a Manning jersey, but the pressure is on.
“This is one of those games for Austin to jump in there and to get Feleipe and Kyle some reps,” Florida coach Jim McElwain said in the SEC teleconference Wednesday. “Things happen in life, and you have to figure out what you want to do next. We try to do everything in our program to create as much chaos as we can anyway.”
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Chaos. That’s what Spurrier, himself an iconic Florida quarterback, created in the rivalry with Tennessee in those '90s matchups. By the time Palmer hit the practice field in '97, Spurrier had led the Gators to at least a share of first place in the SEC East in every year since his 1990 arrival.
Florida won a national title in 1996 with Heisman Trophy-winner Danny Wuerffel. Tennessee won the national title two years later. Only one game from 1995-2002 wasn't a showdown between top-10 teams. Florida and Tennessee combined for five SEC championships from 1995-2000, with Alabama briefly breaking up the run in 1999.
Palmer describes that era in three words, pausing between each one.
“So, much, pressure,” Palmer said. “You knew you were going to be going up against guys like John Henderson and Albert Haynesworth. This was a money game for those seniors, and it was early in the season. You knew that if you lost this game that you were probably not going to Atlanta.”
The back-and-forth continued until the Vols won back-to-back games in 2003-04, the latter coming in Neyland Stadium. Florida coach Ron Zook was fired after that season. Urban Meyer was hired. Tennessee hasn’t won since.
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Chris Leak was the quarterback in Florida’s last loss to Tennessee, but his career arc changed with the arrival of Urban Meyer in 2005. Meyer also would bring in Tebow, who watched those Wuerffel vs. Manning games with his parents. Tebow himself heard the music on the practice field in 2006.
“I heard ‘Rocky Top’ in the training room, in the weight room, in the bathroom,” Tebow told SN. “It was everywhere. ‘Rocky Top’ would be played over and over again the entire week. It was an intense week. We knew what it meant to get to the SEC championship, and it meant you better beat Tennessee.”
Tebow got his first game experience in the rivalry in 2006, a narrow 21-20 win at Neyland Stadium.
“Fourth-and-1 as a freshman and the place is doing crazy,” Tebow recalled of the game. “You’re thinking, ‘This is what college football is all about.’”
Leak and Tebow led Florida to a national championship that season, and Tebow would add a Heisman Trophy and another national title to his accolades in 2007 and '08, respectively.
The Gators went 6-0 against Tennessee under Meyer through 2010: The last four wins were by an average of 21.8 points per game.
That dominance continued with four straight wins under former coach Will Muschamp, and a 28-27 escape at “The Swamp” in McElwain’s first season in 2015. The Volunteers, meanwhile, blew through Lane Kiffin and Derek Dooley after Fulmer’s retirement — and before Butch Jones’ arrival.
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Erik Ainge is the last Tennessee quarterback to beat Florida. Will Josh Dobbs be the next? That’s why Tebow sees the rivalry perking up again. The Vols are getting closer. He uses the same word as Palmer.
“I think it’s gearing up because there’s so much pressure on Tennessee to win,” Tebow said. “This will be bigger than of any of the last five or six games, because both teams are going to have a lot of talent on the field.”
Appleby won’t hear “Rocky Top” at practice this week. McElwain will simulate the crowd noise this week from “100,000-plus people booing you,” but he’s not worried about hearing that fight song.
“As far as ‘Rocky Top,’ I guess we’ll hear it enough when we get there,” McElwain said with a chuckle. “There’s probably no reason to do it now.”
McElwain said there’s no special ingredient in getting Appleby this week. You can prepare snap counts and watch film and do all the football things necessary to get ready.
But Appleby is going to feel the same pressure that Palmer felt in the late '90s, Tebow felt on fourth-and-1 and every other Florida quarterback who has upheld the upper-hand against Tennessee through the 11-game win streak in the rivalry. There’s only one way to face it.
Go out and meet those 100,000-plus boos.
“When you’re a player," McElwain said, "you should be just be excited to play in an environment like this.”
