The last time Tennessee football faced the Missouri Tigers, the Vols were ranked in the top 25 and on a seven-game winning streak. They moved the streak to eight games with Mizzou, against first-year head coach Eliah Drinkwitz, and that got them to 2-0 to start 2020. Then the bottom fell out, they went 3-7, got hit with an investigation and fired Jeremy Pruitt.
Now, Rocky Top is back to facing the team that began and ended its seemingly meteoric rise from 2019 to 2020. This is a completely different group, though, with many key players in the last two wins now gone and a brand new system under head coach Josh Heupel.