When the kick sailed wide left, it felt like an earthquake.
The press box in Neyland Stadium shook on the night of Sept. 19, 1998 as Tennessee fans released five years of pent-up frustration and welcomed in unbridled joy. The Volunteers—winless against Florida since 1992, including the entirety of the Peyton Manning era—had beaten the hated Gators 20–17 in an overtime thriller that ended on Collins Cooper’s missed kick. A season earlier, Tennessee had broken Florida’s four-year stranglehold on the SEC title. Now the Vols had broken the Gators’ stranglehold on the rivalry. The moment felt like a literal seismic event, but it might have been an even bigger figurative one.