With time winding down until the start of the college football season, ESPN’s Bill Connelly has put together a massive list of the Top 100 games that “explain college football in the year 2026.” An alternate headline for the article says that “these 100 games define the modern sport.”
Tennessee lands on the list a handful of times on both the right and wrong sides of the win column. The No. 7 game on the list, in the ‘Legends’ category, is Georgia’s 1980 win over the Vols in the emergence of Herschel Walker. The next Tennessee game on the list is under the ‘Bowls, For Better or Worse’ category, which has Tennessee’s BCS Championship win over Florida State tagged as the No. 34 contest.
Then you get to the ‘Classic Endings’ category, which has Tennessee’s Hail Mary game-winner over Georgia in 2016 as the No. 96 game on the list. Connelly notes that Tennessee scored two touchdowns in less than 10 seconds to win, which put it as one of the final games on this list.
The Josh Dobbs Hail Mary and the subsequent radio call will forever live in Tennessee fans’ minds. It was an unbelievable day as the No. 11 Vols came out on top over the No. 25 Bulldogs. The game deserves a spot on this list, and it’s rightfully there.
But let’s have a little fun. If Tennessee could only have one game in the ‘Classic Endings’ category, should it have been Dobbs’ Hail Mary to beat Georgia or Chase McGrath’s walk-off field goal to end the longtime losing streak to Alabama in 2022, creating perhaps the best field storming in the history of the sport?
Maybe some of this boils down to where you were when you saw the moment happen live. Pulling the curtain back a little bit, I was in the end zone right next to the field goal post that McGrath’s ball snuck through. So, for me, the Alabama game’s ending was something that might not ever be topped in my own career in terms of “classic endings” that I was able to witness. But to any fans who may have been in Sanford Stadium on that Josh Dobbs night, witnessing the emotions of victory being snatched from the jaws of defeat, that might be enough to warrant a vote.
The question is pitting two of Tennessee Football’s all-time most memorable regular-season moments against each other, so it’s a tough one any way you look at it.
How do they relate to the original topic of the article, though, with the 100 games that define the modern sport?
If you’re talking about how those games both impacted the 2026 season, you’re talking about two of Tennessee’s rivals. Georgia has not lost to Tennessee since that game in October 2016. On the other hand, Alabama has gone 2-1 against the Vols since that game in 2022. While a .333 win percentage doesn’t seem like much since the kick happened, you have to remember that the last four years have followed a streak of 15 straight Crimson Tide wins.
Maybe one of the deciding factors comes down to the rivalry side of it, and how both sides will interact in 2026. Tennessee and Alabama are annual rivals in the new nine-game SEC format, while Tennessee and Georgia are not. And with the game returning to Knoxville for the 2026 season, the 2022 kick is sure to be on plenty of highlight reels and hype videos leading up to kickoff. Alabama has not won in Neyland since that kick. The Third Saturday in October rivalry is one of the biggest in the sport today, and the 2022 kick is one of the rivalry’s biggest moments.
If you’re asking me to unfairly pick between the two for one spot on Connelly’s list, I would’ve gone with McGrath’s kick over Alabama. Maybe there’s a little recency bias… and a little I-was-there-in-the-endzone bias. But if you pick Josh Dobbs’ throw, I can’t fault you there at all. Maybe that game, for whatever reason, has a bit more of a memorable connection to you.
None of this really matters in the end, but the hypothetical question struck me while reading through Connelly’s piece. And with the power of a keyboard and a platform, I give the hypothetical to you, the reading audience who has made it this far.
Which game would you put in that Tennessee spot on the ‘Classic Endings’ that explain college football in 2026? The Dobbs Hail Mary or McGrath walk-off? Leave a comment below!
