‘One of our best years’ | Tennessee alum Bill Duff remembers 1996 Citrus Bowl against Ohio State

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - Tennessee alum Bill Duff remembers the 1996 Citrus Bowl fondly. It marks the only time Tennessee and Ohio State have met on the football field, and resulted in a 20-14 win for the Vols.

It was a chilly game, but that didn’t stop Duff from enjoying himself.

“I loved it, you know,” he said. “I’m a Jersey boy. So to me, they were talking about how cold it was, I said, ‘boy, you don’t know cold.' You know, my senior year state championship game was negative five.”

Duff said he wasn’t alone in his thinking. On that rainy day in Orlando, Duff said his team just wanted to play ball.

“So for me, I’m like, ‘okay, it’s a mutter, let’s go,‘” he said. “I don’t think anyone on our side approached it as anything other than an opportunity to play.”

The alum played with Tennessee legends like Peyton Manning. He broke down some of the key plays of the game.

“I think [Ohio State] had gained like a yard, and Orlando started yapping at me,” he said. “I don’t remember what he said, but I looked at that and I said, ‘man, your face doesn’t even fit in that helmet.‘ The rest of his guys kind of started laughing, so I knew they were probably getting on him about that.”

The defensive tackle pulled from his experience off the football field that day, he said.

“I just used an outside single leg takedown of wrestling, because I was a wrestler since the age of five, and because you’re not going to take Eddie George up high, right? Who does that?,” he said. “It was another day in New Jersey wrestling, and he went down and, you know, and I ran off the field.”

It was a good day for the fans, the players and also the coaching staff.

“Yeah, you know, I never saw the coaches that happy in my entire life,” Duff said. “I probably will never see him that happy again. Fulmer had a smile from ear to ear. I remember it as one of our best years that I played there for the five I was there for.”

Tennessee will face Ohio State for the second time in history on Saturday at 8 p.m.

Friday at 7 p.m., tune in to WVLT’s Big Orange Kick Off: Playoff Edition, where you’ll hear from even more icons of Tennessee sports.