Bill Duff stood on a rain-soaked sideline at the Florida Citrus Bowl with his arm draped around Phillip Fulmer.

The defensive lineman was grinning from ear-to-ear as Peyton Manning's knee touched down on the water-logged turf for the final time.

Three months earlier, Tennessee football players exited Florida Field in Gainesville in defeat, their SEC and national championship goals all but evaporated after a dominant first half gave way to a second half that unraveled as the sky—almost poetically—bottomed out in a loss to Florida.

But this result was different. This time, the Vols were walking away triumphant after putting the exclamation point on an 11-win season with a 20-14 win over an Ohio State team that boasted a plethora of star power.

Behind a career day from running back Jay Graham and a defense that held Heisman Trophy winner Eddie George to a season-low in rushing yards, Tennessee made its statement.

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“You don’t have a lot of time to be sad in the SEC," Duff said. "I think back on those times and people say, ‘How did you get over it?’ Well, every good football player has a short memory. You can’t worry that Florida just whooped your ass, because you’ve got Kentucky or Georgia coming down the schedule and you better get your ass ready for them.

"That’s the nice thing about losing a game early. You really don’t have a lot of time to piss and moan about it.”

Tennessee entered the Citrus Bowl on New Year’s Day in 1996 on an eight-game win streak with an average margin of victory of 24.8 points and Manning finished sixth in the Heisman voting, but it was Ohio State that felt slighted.

The Buckeyes were in line for the Rose Bowl before dropping their regular season finale to Michigan, sending Northwestern to Pasadena instead.

In the days leading up to the game, Vols' players got the impression that Ohio State players might have been disinterested.

“In the SEC, we were used to playing monsters every week. There were articles coming out of Ohio that this was a different kind of team that we had never faced before," Duff said. "We started watching film and we didn’t see that, quite honestly. I mean, Eddie George is phenomenal. Orlando Pace was a juggernaut. They had (Mike) Vrabel on defense. They were just stacked. But if you look at the Tennessee side of the ball, you could say the same exact thing. Look at the talent that was on our side. We had just as many NFL guys. It was a battle of the monsters and that’s how we viewed it. I don’t think Ohio State viewed it that way. They felt like they got sent to a lesser bowl and they didn’t want to be there.

"We kind of got that impression from their team at the functional stuff for them bowl game. It was like a let down for them to be in the Citrus Bowl.”

Joey Kent looked at it as opportunity.

The game featured the No. 3 and No. 4 teams in the Associated Press Top 25 and outside of the Fiesta Bowl between Florida and Nebraska, the Citrus Bowl was arguably the most high-profile game of the postseason.

“We knew how good they were. Obviously, they were a little disappointed for losing to Michigan about a month before the game," Kent said. "We were motivated man, because we knew how good they were, starting with Eddie George. You look at that team, you look at that roster. They had so much talent. You look at Terry Glenn, Rickey Dudley, Orlando Pace. They had a roster full of guys that eventually played in the league and were highly successful.

"But we felt like we were a good team, too. We felt like we could make a statement on a national stage against a highly rated team with a lot of talent."

Central Florida wasn't the sunny paradise that the city of Orlando had advertised.

A downpour turned the turf into a muddied basin and it didn't let up. Duff and the rest of the Tennessee defensive line thrived off of the setting.

“Linemen love playing in the mud, so of course, I was like, ‘Yes. This is awesome,'" Duff said. "Just because it slows down the game a little bit and for a defensive lineman that was a gap-shooter like I was, I knew the big guys were going to have trouble with that. Orlando and the rest of the (offensive linemen), they really did. It’s not that they were any less athletes, they were just a hell of a lot bigger than we were. Big gets stuck in the mud."

Ohio State scored first on a 2-yard touchdown run from George late in the first quarter and led 7-0 for much of the first half. The Buckeyes were on the doorstep again just before halftime and given the conditions, a touchdown might have been good enough for the knockout blow.

Afterall, George had pounded his way to 1,826 yards and 23 touchdowns during his Heisman campaign and with Ohio State inside the 10-yard line, there was no question where the ball was going.

George rushed to the three on third down but was just inches short of the first down. After the play, Duff heard Buckeyes' All-American offensive lineman Orlando Pace say something in his direction.

He wasn't sure what was said, but he fired back, setting in motion the events that would follow and potentially change the game for Tennessee.

“The play before was a tumultuous play and there was a lot of chirping," Duff said. "I remember Orlando, he said something to me and he was kind of a soft-spoken guy and I couldn’t really hear what he said. We were in a big group and I looked at him and his face was so big, it didn’t even fit in his helmet. I remember saying, ‘Man, your face doesn’t even fit in your helmet,’ and his guys were laughing.

"That’s just kind of what goes on on the line. You get a quick shot and get back to your huddle. I remember his guys laughing about that and he didn’t look happy with it."

Duff knew Pace would gun for him the next play, but he avoided him and the high school state champion wrestler used a familiar move when he grabbed George below the waist.

It wasn't the first time that Duff and George had gone head-to-head in the game, but it was the most memorable. The two kids from New Jersey, whose grandmother and mother worked together in Atlantic City, clashed and Duff won. George couldn't move and he was well short of the line. Tennessee ball.

"I knew I wasn’t taking him head on. I just shot to the A gap, underneath his knee," Duff said. "I was a wrestler, so I just did a bear crawl and hit Eddie right in his knee and just did a single-leg takedown. There’s no getting away from a wrestler. Once I got your leg, you’re screwed.”

Duff bolted for the Vols' sideline, pumping his fist with his head reared back, looking towards the grey Florida sky. He was in his element and the team was feeding off of it.

"I’m kind of a psycho on the field. No matter what I did, those were my reactions after plays," Duff said. "That was my role on the team because I was the heavy metal guy. I loved heavy metal, I loved rock ‘n roll. I got to hit people and not get arrested."

Kent vividly remembers looking at the back of Graham's jersey.

Two possessions after Tennessee's fourth down stop, the Vols were 34 seconds away from going into the locker room down one score. Then Graham got the hand off.

He went about 15 yards up the middle and untouched before two Ohio State defenders made contact. Kent made the block that paved the path to the end zone. He watched Graham zip by and race 69 yards for the game-tying touchdown.

Suddenly, it was Tennessee that had all of the momentum.

“I was on the field during that play and I got a block on the safety and I remember (Graham) running behind me. I was actually on the ground because I kind of fell to the ground with the safety. Just watching him run, man. Jay, his speed back during that time was unmatched. I knew once he got going nobody was going to catch him. There was a lot of talent on the field. A lot of plays that were made in that game that I still remember today. That’s probably one of the better games that I played in as far as a Tennessee player.”

Graham rushed for 154 yards and was named the game's MVP, but his teammates agreed that no run was bigger than that one. It proved to be the turning point.

Kent was no stranger to big plays himself. Earlier that season, he was on the receiving end of an 80-yard Manning touchdown pass on the first play against Alabama, which kick-started a 41-14 victory at Legion Field.

In the early-going of the third quarter against Ohio State, Kent provided another jolt.

In the first half, Kent was guarded by All-American corner back Shawn Springs, who went on to play in the NFL for 13 seasons. It was a match up that Kent relished but when Springs went down with an injury, freshman Antione Winfield replaced him.

Winfield also later had a lengthy pro career, but he had trouble containing Kent and both Kent and Manning knew it.

Manning threw a high pass that was slightly under thrown, but Kent came back to it as Winfield over ran it. He hauled it in at the 6-yard line, turned around and walked into the end zone to give Tennessee its first lead at 14-7.

“I remember, Peyton and I talked about Shawn (Springs) being out and his backup being in. It was just a goal," Kent said. "I don’t remember the actual name of the play but it was just a nine route. I just had to beat the corner. I just felt like I could. The ball was kind of under thrown a little bit, which helped me because Antoine got kind of turned around a little bit and all I had to do was turn around and get hold of it. That was definitely a big play in the game.”

It ended the only way it could.

A Tennessee defense that answered the call time and again, sealed the win in the final minuet as DeRon Jenkins jarred the ball loose from Dimitrous Stanley. Craig King landed on top of it at the 38-yard line.

Two Jeff Hall field goals created enough separation after Ohio State evened the score at 14-14 in the fourth quarter, then the Vols forced three turnovers on the Buckeyes' final four possessions, including Stanley's fumble with 23 seconds remaining.

Ohio State was never able to establish a rhythm, even behind George who Tennessee limited to just 84 yards.

"The defense played really well," Kent said. "I think they felt like they had something to prove going against the Heisman Trophy winner. There’s going to be a lot of eyes on the defense and there’s going to be a lot of eyes on him."

John Cooper credited a little more than the Vols' defense for Ohio State's defeat.

The Buckeyes head coach contested that Tennessee had illegally extended its cleats to give itself a competitive advantage on the wet grass. He later claimed to have had one of Kent's cleats, taken from the Vols' locker room after the game, in his possession to prove his case.

Cooper tried to have Tennessee's cleats measured during pregame warm ups, but to no avail.

"They didn't do anything about it," Cooper later told the Columbus Dispatch. "One guy told me they didn't have a ruler."

Conversely, Duff says that team equipment manager Roger Frazier was just good at his job.

“I wore molded (cleats) in that game. The cleats had nothing to do it. Most of the defensive linemen were wearing molded," Duff said. "They were complaining about the backs because Roger Fraizer put longer nubs in our guys’ cleats because they were slipping. Why wouldn’t you? That’s your job.

"You want to give credit to someone who won that game? Roger Frazier and Max Parrott. They literally gave us a step up in that game.”

Duff was at a Tennessee game at Neyland Stadium a year ago when he ran into former tight end John Finlayson and offensive lineman Cosey Coleman.

Both players were freshmen in Duff's senior season in 1997 and later members of the Vols' 1998 national championship team a year later. They wanted to remind Duff of what it was like playing with him. He added some perspective.

“I had a couple of players from the ‘98 team come up to me last year when I went back for a game. I was with my wife," Duff said. "They said to my wife, ‘We just want to let you know that your husband was the biggest asshole that we ever met on the team.’ I was a little taken back. And they said, ‘He was so hard on us and would never go half-speed.’ I said, ‘Guys, what do you think the guys ahead of me did to make us good?’ I was doing the same thing and said, ‘Remind me, did y’all win a national title?

"You want to thank me now or later? I was just doing what Bubba Miller and (Leslie) Ratliffe did to me. I was passing it on and making you tough.'"

Both Duff and Kent came up short of being a part of Tennessee's first national title in more than 30 years, but they helped lay the groundwork for it during the program's successful run through the 90s.

By the end of the 1995 season, the Vols were in the conversation for being one of the best teams in college football. In the age of the College Football Playoff, the Vols would have a chance to prove it.

They feel like they did against Ohio State.

“I wish we had an opportunity to play in that national championship game. That one half against Florida cost us that opportunity," Kent said. "We were playing the best ball of anybody in the country at the end of the year. We proved it against Ohio State. You don’t get those opportunities to play for a national championship, to compete in one. I didn’t get an opportunity to play in an SEC Championship, so that (Citrus Bowl) was the closest that I’ve gotten. Obviously, times were different. If they had the playoffs in that times, we would definitely be one of the four teams. I would have liked our chances that year.

"We were motivated to play Ohio State and to prove we were one of the better teams in the country. I think we did that day.”

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