If Ainge plays against LSU, that fumble wouldn't have mattered and the Arkansas game wouldn't have been a blowout either.
2001 is the last one I remember being a one-game, win-and-your-in type of situation. Will not argue 06 was capable of the same, but it just didn't go that way.
Half the offensive backfield getting in trouble the week of 06 Arkansas was more damning than Crompton playing too
Awesome. Glad you got to go with your dad. You guys will always have an irreplaceable memory that can't be taken away. You can't put a price on that. It was a great experience all around. Me & 2 of my buddies went. Volguy here on 8th is one that went (along with his wife who is basically one of the guys as she farts & belches right along with us), & the other buddy that went has been at 8th tailgates before. I'm sure several guys here have met him. The 3 of us have been buddies since kindergarten & still run around together today when family, work, & life allows. We DROVE from the Tri-Cities to Las Vegas to Tempe to Flagstaff then home in 5 days. Jay doesn't do flying.... It would kill me to be in a vehicle for 36 hours going to the game & 30 hours returning today (went south on the way there to avoid an ice storm but took I-40 from Flagstaff all the way home until we took I-81 home to the Tri.), but it was a blast. Got to see lots of country I never thought I would. I will say that the smell oozing out of Volguy's full sized Bronco at the end of that trip would knock a buzzard off a gut wagon. It wasn't human. My situation was similar to your dad's thinking. I was going back & forth on whether I should go. I wanted to go, but I didn't want my wife to be alone for a good bit. We hadn't been married too long, & having grown up in a subdivision, she hadn't become too comfortable living on my farm which is sort of isolated, at least compared to what she was used to. Her dad, who is about as straight laced & conservative (not in the political sense) as you can get, talked me into it. I mean this guy only likes vanilla ice cream. Great guy, but you could call him boring. Anyway, he said if I didn't go & they happened to win, I'd regret it the rest of my life. He also emphasized that he was a toddler the last time UT won a national championship. Emphasis being that it may be my only chance to witness them win a title in my lifetime in person. Given the last 15 years of UT football, he looks like Nostradamus on that one.
We drove as well, left out around lunch time on the 1st and rolled into Tempe the morning of the 4th. Left the morning after the game and drove straight back on 40 in a couple of days. We went south on the way to the game as well, stopped in Dallas to see Dealey Plaza, and continued through El Paso to Tucson. I can remember every detail of the trip out and of the game. My only memory of the trip back is stopping to see the Oklahoma City bombing memorial. I think I slept the rest of the time.
Volguy's wife drove for 2 out of the 66 total hours. Slept the rest of the time too. I never thought about going to Dealey Plaza. Pissed me off that I didn't. We got off I-20 somewhere around Lubbock & meandered our way back to 40 around Gallop, NM. I was so sick of Texas, I don't care to ever see that godforsaken place ever again. East Texas was ok. Central & west Texas caused me to ask why we fought an actual war over the dang place. The 1st tumbleweed was cool. The 10 millionth sucked. We had reservations in Flagstaff, but saw a sign that said- Las Vegas: 150 miles. After driving 2,000 miles we thought what's another 150? Stopped to see Hoover Dam & stayed in New York, New York Casino for about 10 hours before having to head out for the game. We did stop in the middle of Nowhere, AZ to see a BIG damn hole in the ground caused by a meteor strike. Oh, and at a gas stop in AZ, I got out of the Bronco, walked to a 4-way intersection, and just stood there. When asked what I was doing, I told the guys that I was standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona. I didn't see a girl in a flatbed Ford slowing down to take a look at me, though.
Still more recent than: Georgia Michigan Notre Dame Nebraska Penn State Texas A&M And a bunch that are totally irrelevant now. So, there’s that.
Since the start of the SEC this is the longest we have gone with a conference championship. Previous long was after the 1969 championship till we won in 1985. Of the other Big 6 schools (only teams to win the conference since 1963) the longest droughts: Alabama: 10 years (1999-2009) Auburn: 26 years (1957 -1983) [First title in 1957, 24 years since SEC formed] Longest since was 16 years from 1988-2004 LSU: 22 years (1936-1958) Longest since was 16 years from 1970-1986 and 13 years from 1988-2001 Florida: 51 years, Went from SEC start in 1933 to 1984 before winning one. The 1984 title was vacated, so officially went 58 years till 1991. Since then longest without a title is their current streak, last title in 2008 Georgia: 20 years (1982-2002)