Phil Fulmer reflects on 1998 national championship
KNOXVILLE — Tennessee’s path to the 1998 football national championship began with a humbling end to the 1997 season.
In the final year before the beginning of the Bowl Championship Series, the Southeastern Conference champion Volunteers — ranked No. 3 at the time — had a chance to share or win a national title when they took on No. 2 Nebraska in the Orange Bowl.
“They just hammered us with their style of play,” Phillip Fulmer said Tuesday. “That left an impression.”
That impression motivated the Vols during the offseason as pundits discounted the 1998 team’s potential amid the departure of stars such as Peyton Manning, Leonard Little, Marcus Nash and Terry Fair.
Fulmer, who was the Tennessee head coach then and is now the athletic director, recalled his memories of the 1998 season Tuesday. Tennessee will commemorate the 20-year anniversary of that team’s national championship at this season’s home game against Florida on Sept. 22.
It was a team that took the lessons of the 42-17 loss to Nebraska to heart.
“I remember we got embarrassed,” Fulmer said. “Particularly on defense, we got physically whipped, and we hadn’t had that happen to us in a very long time at that point. So I’m sure (strength) Coach (John) Stucky took it on as a challenge. The team did.”
The 1998 team’s player leadership was “unbelievable,” Fulmer said, and there was no better example of it than with senior linebacker Al Wilson. Fulmer sat down with Wilson in January after the Orange Bowl loss and laid out the leadership expectations for the Jackson, Tennessee, native.
Part of those expectations included acting.
“I asked him to, in the preseason, get up in front of the team and announce that we were going to have to give our SEC championship rings back,” Fulmer said. “Everybody was going to be penalized because he had taken money from an agent — that wasn’t true at all. But he was telling the team. You could feel the air go out of the room and the shock in the room.
“He had the straightest face you can ever imagine. He shocked them.”
The point was made. Don’t mess with agents.
“He had the tendency to be a good leader,” Fulmer said. “He just hadn’t pushed himself out there. I encouraged him to do that. I told him the team needed him to step up as a leader. Al did the same thing in high school as a senior. He was an incredible leader for his football team.”
With Wilson in command, the defense led the Vols to victory over Florida. The defense also held Auburn and Georgia to a combined 10 points in consecutive road games as Tennessee raced out to a 5-0 start before a bye week.
After the win against Georgia, which was ranked No. 7, Fulmer sensed his team was capable of a monumental season. By then, the Vols had knocked off their two challengers in the SEC East, having already defeated Florida in the second game of the season.
“Those were the two biggest hurdles,” Fulmer said. “Arkansas later on turned out to be a bigger hurdle than maybe you expected it to be. Found a way to get that one done.”
That was the theme of the season. Through the transition to a new quarterback, injuries to Wilson and star running back Jamal Lewis and improbable late-game heroics, the Vols found a way to get it done.
“They just wanted to win,” Fulmer said. “They were an easy team to coach. Not like you were pulling teeth to get them to try hard.”
Contact David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @ DavidWCobb and on Facebook at facebook.com/volsupdate.