From Peyton Manning's start to Phillip Fulmer's finish, Tennessee football's best, worst vs Pac-12 | Adams

The college football season will begin this weekend. Fittingly, the sparse opening-week schedule will include five games involving Pac-12 teams.

This is the beginning of the end for the Pac-12 conference – a victim of expansion, realignment, and its own misguided leadership.

Most of its schools have found new, more affluent homes for 2024 – in the Big Ten and Big 12.

The conference’s Final Four – Stanford, Cal, Oregon State and Washington State – eventually will wind up somewhere.

I will miss the Pac-12. In fact, I still miss the Southwest Conference, whose competitive fires basically burned it out of existence. If NIL deals had been allowed in the 1980s, the SWC wouldn’t have cheated itself to death but would have flourished.

In retrospect, maybe the Pac-12 should have had less regard for NCAA rules. The conference hasn’t fielded a national champion in football since Southern California won back-to-back titles in 2003-04.

My connection to the Pac-12 is two-fold. My game-day work in during football season is usually done in time to watch late-night Pac-12 games.

There’s also a Tennessee-Pac-12 connection. The Vols’ longtime devotion to national recruiting surely factored into their decision to schedule West Coast teams.

My first season covering UT was in 1987. On the first Saturday in October, it beat Cal 38-12 at Neyland Stadium. I remember absolutely nothing about the game.

Later games against Cal, UCLA and Oregon would prove more memorable and significant to Tennessee football. Here’s my list of the best and worst of Tennessee vs. Pac-12 teams since 1987.

The best

Tennessee 24, UCLA 6

In 1989, the Vols were coming off a 5-6 season. After an unimpressive 17-14 victory over Colorado State in their opener, they were a double-digit underdog to sixth-ranked UCLA.

They overwhelmed the Bruins with a powerful running game, featuring Chuck Webb and Reggie Cobb, in a decisive victory.

Then-UCLA coach Terry Donahue called it an “absolutely flawless performance by Tennessee.”

The victory propelled the Vols to a 11-1 season and a No. 5 national ranking.

Tennessee 35, Cal 18

After a 5-6 season in 2005, then-Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer was edging close to the proverbial hot seat when the Vols opened the 2006 season against ninth-ranked Cal.

But Tennessee dominated from the opening kickoff en route to a 35-0 lead that had Neyland Stadium rocking and the overmatched, overrated Bears reeling.

Cal coach Jeff Tedford summed up the experience: “We’ve never seen anything like that.”

Tennessee 10, Washington State 9

The 1994 game at Neyland Stadium was close but hardly entertaining. But it was the start of something big.

Legendary quarterback Peyton Manning made his first college start that night, and the Vols went on to win six of their last seven games. In the next three seasons, Tennessee lost only five games with Manning at quarterback.

The Worst

UCLA 27, Tennessee 24

The 2008 season opener was played in the Rose Bowl Stadium and featured Rick Neuheisel’s debut as Bruins coach. It also was the beginning of the end for Fulmer, who was fired after a 5-7 season.

The Bruins should have been an easy mark. They had lost their first- and second-string quarterbacks to injury, and three of their offensive starters incurred first-half injuries.

UCLA quarterback Kevin Craft threw three interceptions in the first half but completed 18 of 25 second-half passes as the Bruins eventually won in overtime. The defeat looked even worse for the Vols after UCLA lost its next game to BYU 59-0 and finished 4-8.

Oregon 59, Tennessee 14

Rarely have the Vols been so overmatched as they were in 2013, Butch Jones’ first season as coach. The Ducks scored all 59 of their points in the first three quarters and could have hit 80 if they hadn’t substituted so liberally in the fourth quarter.

Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota, who would win the Heisman Trophy the following season, passed for 456 yards and four touchdowns.

Washington State 52, Tennessee 24

Entering the 1988 season, Washington State had managed only two winning seasons in 10 years. But in 1987, it hired coach Dennis Erickson. His quick fix produced a 9-3 record a year later.

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In 1989, Erickson was hired by Miami, which he led to national championship. The rousing victory at Neyland Stadium didn’t hurt his resume.

It was the fifth in six consecutive losses to start Tennessee’s 1988 season.

John Adams is a senior columnist. He may be reached at 865-342-6284 or john.adams@knoxnews.com. Follow him at: twitter.com/johnadamskns.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: My three best, worst Tennessee football games vs Pac-12 teams