Losing to Tennessee Absolutely Sucks

A wise man once said, “I hate Tennessee.” For any self-respecting Kentucky fan, these are words to live by. There’s a reason that that video remains so endearing, no matter how many times it pops up on websites like this one: it’s a universal truth. They low-down, they dirty, and they some snitches.

Losing to Tennessee, as Kentucky did on Saturday, is just the worst. We all know this. We saw it frequently, year after year, for more than three decades. Each time sucked more than the last.

Last night, I watched Kentucky lose to Tennessee from Section 14 at Kroger Field, just a few rows up from the Volunteer band. Surrounded by orange for three hours, the few of us in blue roared with every surge by the home team and groaned in the intermittent moments — there were plenty — when the opposite occurred. With every Tennessee touchdown, we endured their obnoxious and confusing chants, counting on a coming moment when they’d get their due. It never came.

In the end, like many of you, I walked out of that stadium with my shoulders slumped. I was exhausted and angry, Rocky Top ringing in my ears. It was the perfect confluence of absolute suckitude.

You’d think, after all these years, it wouldn’t burn so much. That we’d be used to it. But no, we can’t help but hope. Now that we’ve seen what’s possible for this program, losing games like that, to the likes of them, will never not be infuriating. Especially when they do things like this:

A handful of Tennessee players went to the UK logo before heading to the locker room. pic.twitter.com/UQOBacDEhM

— Keith Farmer (@KeithFarmer18) November 7, 2021

It’s annoying that they think they’ve earned it. There is no more undeservedly self-righteous fanbase in the world than Tennessee fans. I mean, they had one good decade, and they’ve been riding off it for the past 20 years. It’s kind of like Duke basketball, only if Coach K had retired in 2004, then they returned to total irrelevance post-Shane Battier, but no one told the fans.

Even worse, these people are our neighbors. They’re our hygiene-challenged cousin, or our uncle who lives down the street, with the big T flag on his pickup that he somehow thinks will make him cooler (I swear, they’re the only people in the world who manage to look worse in checkerboards than we do). Some of ’em even claim to be UK fans during basketball season, and boy, don’t get me going on y’all.

They aren’t like Louisville fans. There’s more of them, for one thing, and they’re louder. And they don’t even have the decency to get embarrassed when their coaches do hilariously stupid things.

But the worst part, bar none, is that for now — until next year, anyway — we can’t say a word. Everything in this post frankly means nothing. They’ll never stop being low-down, dirty pumpkin-heads, but until we beat them again, we’ve got no room to talk.

That’s why I hate losing to Tennessee. Personally, I would love it if it never happens again. But when it does, I’ll be right here, getting as fired up as always, plotting next year’s revenge.

Here’s hoping this one will be extra sweet.