Boo! Halloween Games Can Be Scary for Tennessee

The defense South Carolina is bringing to Neyland Stadium for Saturday's game against Tennessee is frightening.

The Vols' recent Halloween football history is even scarier.

Tennessee has played a Halloween game only three times in the modern era of college football. Two of them have ended in road upsets.

To be fair, the Vols have won far more than they've lost (11-3) in their Halloween gridiron appearances, beginning with a 10-0 win at Nashville in 1903.

But forgive Vols fans if they automatically think "Steve Taneyhill" when Halloween comes to mind.

In 1992, Taneyhill—South Carolina's freshman quarterback—passed and taunted his way to a 25-24 win over Tennessee. He put the final nail into the coffin of the Vols' SEC championship hopes and brought about the end of the Johnny Majors era in Knoxville.

To be fair, Majors was probably on his way out anyway. With Majors sidelined by heart surgery, the Vols raced out of the gates in '92 under the direction of interim head coach and offensive coordinator Phil Fulmer. By the time the Halloween trip to Columbia rolled around, the Vols were coming off back-to-back losses to Arkansas and Alabama, and the winds of change were blowing.

South Carolina coach Sparky Woods was on the hot seat himself, after South Carolina began its first season in SEC play with an 0-5 record. But on that afternoon in Williams-Brice Stadium, the Gamecocks righted a season's worth of wrongs at the Vols' expense.

Woods, an East Tennessee native, felt slighted by Tennessee when the Vols didn't offer him a scholarship after a standout quarterback career at Oneida, TN, high school, just up the road from Knoxville. Instead, Woods played collegiate football at Carson-Newman College in nearby Jefferson City before going on to a successful coaching stint at Appalachian State.

On that beautiful Saturday afternoon, South Carolina coach Sparky Woods got his revenge, and Taneyhill made a name for himself and his long locks. The Gamecocks smacked No. 16 Tennessee in the mouth, winning 24-23: Their first victory over Tennessee since 1903, and their first win in the SEC.

Tennessee almost came back late, after Mose Phillips scored from midfield on a screen pass—running "through, around, over and underneath defenders from South Carolina," as legendary UT broadcaster John Ward described it, but came up short when James "Little Man" Stewart was stopped short of the goal line by S.C. linebacker Hank Campbell on a two-point conversion attempt.

For the Vols, the loss was eerily similar to a 1987 loss at Boston College.

That Halloween nightmare was also an upset, as the Eagles defeated No. 13 Tennessee 20-18.

And what a nightmare it was. Tennessee had a terrific start to the season spoiled by Alabama two weeks earlier, when the unranked Crimson Tide upset the No. 8 Vols 41-22. But after rebounding for a 29-15 win over Georgia Tech, Tennessee rolled into the Northeast ready to play its way back into the Top 10.

Instead, quarterback Jeff Frances was sidelined by an injury, Tennessee turned the ball over on three of its first four possessions, and gave up nearly 350 rushing yards to B.C., which jumped to a 20-3 lead. The Vols did get a couple of touchdowns from Reggie Cobb late, but it was too little to stave off the upset, as the Eagles earned their first victory over Tennessee since 1940.

Losses to unranked teams on the road in each of their last two Halloween appearances made Vols fans understandably nervous as South Carolina visited Neyland Stadium for a Halloween showdown in 1998. The Gamecocks were again unranked, while Tennessee was No. 3 and nursing hopes of its first national championship in nearly 50 years.

The ghosts of '87 and '92 wouldn't be resurrected on that day; junior quarterback Tee Martin made sure of that. Martin set an NCAA record with 23 consecutive pass completions as the Vols defeated the Gamecocks 49-14. It was one of the all-time greatest single-game performances by a Tennessee quarterback, as Martin finished 23 of 24 for 310 yards and four touchdowns.

A week later, Ohio State had gone down in defeat, and Tennessee was in position for a berth in the first-ever BCS Championship Game.

So it isn't all bad. In fact, there's more pleasant memories than ghoulish ones for Tennessee on Halloween football Saturdays. After a 48-0 setback at Mississippi A&M (now Mississippi State) in 1910, the Vols wouldn't lose another Halloween game until that 1987 setback at Boston College, winning eight straight spook day appearances. And UT has never lost at home on Halloween, compiling a record of 6-0.

But as No. 21 South Carolina prepares to visit on Saturday, for Tennessee's first-ever Halloween game against a team ranked in the AP Top 25, the old memories of a certain freshman quarterback dancing on the sidelines as his team shocked the Vols will creep up on Tennessee fans as surely as high school pranksters will spend the evening rolling friends' lawns.

Will 1992 repeat itself? Or will the game take on shades of 1942, when the Vols slammed favored LSU 26-0 at Shields-Watkins Field on Halloween afternoon?

There's no need for ghosts or goblins inside Neyland Stadium on this night. This block party is haunted by Eric Berrys and Eric Norwoods. That should be plenty enough to strike fear into the hearts of Jonathan Crompton and Stephen Garcia. And if history is bound to repeat itself, may it take its cue from Halloween 1970, when Wake Forest ventured into Neyland Stadium and was thrashed, 41-7.