Speaking of long overtime games, how about the longest game in Tennessee football history? The year before, Arkansas had played the longest game in college football history by topping the Ole Miss Rebels 58-56 in seven overtimes.
This year, they were heading to Knoxville to play the Vols in a night-game on ESPN. Tennessee fans were ecstatic at the time because Florida had lost to Ole Miss earlier that day, which meant they were back in the SEC East race.
All they had to do was put away the Razorbacks. And with a 17-3 lead in the fourth, they seemed to be in control. It seemed like a boring game that would end in a boring victory to send everybody home happy.
But Phillip Fulmer and Randy Sanders began to sit on the lead. Arkansas came back. And all of a sudden it was 17-17 heading to overtime.
And the craziness in overtime is what puts this game here. It’s not just that the game went six overtimes. It’s that it seemed like the Vols were just meant to win.
he two teams exchanged field goals in the first overtime, then Arkansas took a field goal lead in the second. Due to the injury bug biting the team, Tennessee was down to its backup kicker in Phillip Newman, who needed to make another field goal to force a third overtime.
In the first bit of craziness, the kick was blocked. But it somehow still just barely grazed over the uprights and went in. So then came a third overtime.
Tennessee fumbled away the ball on its offensive possession. All Arkansas needed was a field goal. But in terrible coaching by Houston Nutt, he ran three plays to the right, forcing a field goal at an angle. As a result, Arkansas missed the kick.
The two teams exchanged touchdowns in the fourth with no two-point conversions. The same happened in the fifth, except the Vols got lucky again. Jabari Davis fumbled the ball into the end zone, and Troy Fleming recovered it for their touchdown.
Finally, in the sixth, Arkansas took a go-ahead field goal. And on their first offensive play, Casey Clausen hit Jason Witten in a pass that was almost intercepted. Witten ran it in for a touchdown, and Tennessee won 41-38.
