re: Other than the 1998 anomaly, what has Tennessee accomplished

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Nobody gave a damn about bowls in the 30s. They were pretty much glorified exhibition games that didn't matter that much. They awarded national championships BEFORE bowl games. Just to give you an idea of how much they mattered.

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They gave a damn about the Rose because that was the biggest and longest lasting (since 1902) at the time. It wasn't until 1935 that other bowl games were anything but temporary and expected to be temporary. There were a whole slew of bowl games nobody has ever heard of because they were, as you said, essentially exhibition matches. In the mid-'30s, that mindset started to change and the very idea of a bowl game became more prestigious. The polls didn't catch up for decades, granted, but that doesn't mean bowls were considered inconsequential once the big names like the Sugar, Orange, and Cotton started rolling alongside the Rose.