The Tennessee Volunteers football team represents the University of Tennessee in American football.
Overview Early history (1891–1963)
Tennessee's football program began in 1891, organized in large part by Henry Denlinger, a teacher who had played at Princeton. The team's first game, a loss to Sewanee, was played on November 21, 1891.Jack Neely, "The Birth of Tennessee Football, Knoxville Mercury, September 3, 2015. The program's first win did not come until October 25, 1892, when they defeated Maryville College in Maryville, Tennessee, by a score of 25–0. Tennessee competed in their first 5 seasons without a coach.
In October 1894, the Athletic Association had resolved to drop varsity football and look forward to baseball in the spring of 1895. After the humiliating 1893 season with two wins and four imposing defeats, only two athletes willing to admit they had played on the 1893 team returned to campus in 1894. To complicate matters further, the practice field, located just west of the main entrance to the Hill, was being graded and improved. Soon after the Athletic Association's decision, W. B. Stokely, a UT senior who transferred from Wake Forest University, persuaded a group of students to form a team in the fall of 1894. Stokely, who was elected captain, gave encouragement and direction to the other players. Even though the institution chose not to be represented officially on the gridiron in 1894, Stokely and his unofficial team kept football interest alive during this period when almost certainly it otherwise would have been allowed to lapse completely. These unofficial games, referred to as "The Lost Years", are not included in NCAA statistics or in official UT win–loss records. The 1896 team was the first "official team", posting the school's first winning record, and joining the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association, the first Southern athletics conference. 1898 was UT's first time to not have an active football team, due to the Spanish–American War.
Tennessee played on Waite Field during these days, on the southeast corner of 15th street and Cumberland avenue, where the Walters Life Science Building now stands.
In 1899, J. A. Pierce became the first head coach of the team. Author Nash Buckingham was a prominent athlete in 1901 and 1902, two of Tennessee's strongest early elevens. The 1902 team scored on rival Vanderbilt for the first time, and also featured halfback Tootsie Douglas, who booted a 109-yard punt (the field length was 110 yards in those days) in a blizzard, against John Heisman's Clemson Tigers. Fullback Sam Y. Parker of the 1904 and 1905 teams made Buckingham's All-Southern team in 1904, and was murdered in 1906 for an alleged affair. Roscoe 'Piggy' Ward was the school's only three-time captain. The 1908 team coached by George Levene was considered the best Tennessee football yet assembled, led by All-Southerns captain Walker Leach and College Football Hall of Fame inductee Nathan Dougherty. Its four SIAA wins was the most in school history. Vanderbilt coach Dan McGugin noted "All things considered, Leach was perhaps the best football player of the year in Dixie." The 1909 team won only a single game, and Levene was fired. The 1910 team was coached by former Sewanee tackle Lex Stone.
The team had several coaches with short tenures until Zora Clevenger took over in 1911. The 1912 squad was the first non-losing Volunteer team in four years, but they did not win a conference game. In 1914, Clevenger led the Vols to a dominant 9–0 season and their first championship of any kind (even state titles), winning the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association title. The team included All-Southerns end Goat Carroll, tackle Farmer Kelly, guard Mush Kerr and fullback Rus Lindsay. Tennessee beat rival Vanderbilt for the first time, passing for two touchdowns to Carroll in a 16–14 victory. The 1914 Vols were retroactively awarded a national championship by 1st-N-Goal, though this remains largely unrecognized.
The Vols would again field an undefeated squad in 1916 under coach John R. Bender, but consistency was still elusive. A second, unblemished SIAA championship in three years was relegated to a tie with Georgia Tech when Kentucky held Tennessee to a scoreless tie in the final week of play. End Graham Vowell was a unanimous All-Southern selection. Chink Lowe also made some All-Southern teams. The New York Herald ranked quarterback Buck Hatcher as the season's premier punter.
Professor Dougherty officially suspended varsity football during the World War I years of 1917 and 1918 because the majority of the players were called into military service. In addition, Coach Bender was enlisted as an instructor at Camp John Sevier in Greenville, South Carolina. During this period without varsity football, two unofficial teams were formed from Army recruits and students. One team represented a training unit called the Fighting Mechanics and the other represented the Student Army Training Corps (SATC). Vanderbilt beat the SATC 78–0 in 1918, and counts the game as one against the Volunteers.
Under new coach M. B. Banks, in 1920, 1921, and 1922 the Vols lost to rival Vanderbilt and one other opponent. In 1921, Shields–Watkins Field, the core of modern Neyland Stadium, was built. The new home of the Vols was named after William S. Shields and his wife Alice Watkins Shields, the financial backers of the field. The field used bleachers that could seat 3,200, and had been used for baseball the prior year. The inaugural game at Shields–Watkins field was played on September 24, 1921, and resulted in a 27–0 Tennessee victory over Emory and Henry College. Rufe Clayton scored the first touchdown in the new stadium. After the loss to Vanderbilt, Tennessee had its first ever victory over the Mississippi A&M Aggies, a 14–7 win. Roe Campbell spearheaded the first touchdown drive. In 1922, the team began to wear orange jerseys for the first time after previously wearing black jerseys.Tennessee Traditions , UTSports.com. Accessed: July 9, 2015. The 1923 team lost to Vanderbilt 51–7, the worst loss to the Commodores since 1909 (disregarding 1918). Estes Kefauver played as a guard on the team. In 1924 and 1925, J. G. Lowe, the brother of Chink, was the last Vol football player to serve as captain two years in a row until 2004.
Robert Neyland took over as head coach in 1926. At the time, Neyland was a captain in the United States Army and an ROTC instructor at the school. In the 1929 season at least, his two assistant coaches (also ROTC instructors) out-ranked him. Former player Dougherty, who had then become dean of the school's engineering program and chairman of athletics, stated the priority: "Even the score with Vanderbilt", referring to the Nashville school which had been dominating football in the state under coach Dan McGugin. Captain Neyland led the Vols to a 76–7–5 record from 1926 to 1934. This first stint with UT for Neyland saw the Vols rattle off undefeated streaks of 33, 28, and 14 games, including five undefeated seasons (1927, 1928, 1929, 1931, and 1932). Neyland lost to Vanderbilt in his first season, but either won or tied Vanderbilt in his next seven seasons. Neyland captured the school's first Southern Conference title in 1927, in only his second year on the job. The Commodores were up late until a Dick Dodson run tied the score. "After the game McGugin questioned each of his players as to his whereabouts during the run. Without exception the players claimed that two men had blocked them. McGugin shrugged. "Well, we'll just protest the play. It's perfectly obvious that Tennessee had 22 men on the field." Led by captain John Barnhill, the team won all its other games.
Longtime Georgia Tech football coach Bobby Dodd led Tennessee at quarterback to back-to-back unbeaten seasons with identical 9–0–1 records his sophomore and junior years in 1928 and 1929.
The 1928 Vols beat Vanderbilt for the first time since 1916, scored an upset victory over coach Wallace Wade's heavily favored Alabama Crimson Tide, and beat the Florida Gators team which led the nation in scoring by a single point, in the mud. Again like 1916, the season's only blemish was a scoreless tie with Kentucky. In 1929, Gene McEver became the football program's first ever All-American. He led the nation in scoring, and his 130 points stood as a 95-year-long school record until Dylan Sampson scored 132 in 2024. Dodd was named to Grantland Rice's All-America team in 1930, making him the 2nd granted that honor at Tennessee, following McEver. McEver missed the entire 1930 season with torn ligaments in his knee. His prior sidekick at halfback Buddy Hackman filled the void and made All-Southern. During Dodd's tenure, the Vols went 33 games without a loss until an 18–6 setback against national champion Alabama in 1930, which ranks as the longest unbeaten streak in UT history. After the loss, Dodd and his teammates helped kick off another unbeaten streak lasting 28 games that ranks as the second longest.
In the 1930s, Tennessee saw a number of more firsts. They played in the New York City Charity Game on December 5, 1931, the program's first ever bowl game. Led by Herman Hickman, they scored a 13–0 victory over New York University. Hickman's performance caught the eye of sportswriter Grantland Rice, who added Hickman to his All American team, and he would later play professionally for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Led by a backfield with Deke Brackett and Beattie Feathers, the 1932 team were SoCon champions.
After the 1932 season, Tennessee joined the newly formed Southeastern Conference, setting the stage for decades of new and now storied rivalries with such teams like Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt. In 1933, Wallace Wade's Duke Blue Devils upset Neyland's Vols 10–2, the first loss for the Vols in over seasons. It caused Neyland to say of Fred Crawford, the first first-team All-American from the state of North Carolina: "He gave the finest exhibition of tackle play I have ever seen." After the 1934 season, Neyland was called into military service in Panama.
Tennessee struggled to a losing record during Neyland's time in Panama. He returned to find a rebuilding project in 1936. In 1936 and 1937, the Vols won six games each season. However, in 1938, Neyland's Vols began one of the more impressive streaks in NCAA football history. Led by the likes of Tennessee's only three time All-American Bob Suffridge, the 1938 Tennessee Volunteers football team won the school's first National Championship and earned a trip to the Orange Bowl, the team's first major bowl, where they pounded fellow unbeaten Oklahoma by a score of 17–0. They outscored their opponents 283–16. The 1939 regular season was even more impressive. The 1939 team was the last NCAA team ever to hold their opponents scoreless for an entire regular season. Surprisingly, the Vols did not earn a national title that year despite being ranked #1 for most of the season, but did earn a trip to the famed Rose Bowl. The Vols were without the services of tailback George Cafego, who would finish fourth in the Heisman voting and be the top pick in the NFL draft, due to a knee injury. Cafego's backup was also injured. For a single-wing squad heavily dependent upon the tailback position, it proved to be too much for the Vols to overcome. In front of a crowd of over 90,000, Tennessee fell by a score of 14–0 to Southern California. That loss ended UT's streak of 17 straight shutout games and 71 consecutive shutout quarters, NCAA records to this day.