SEC coaching rivalries: Phillip Fulmer vs. Steve Spurrier, 1993-2001

It seems unlikely in the current climate of high-pressure SEC coaching that there will be another lifer who serves his alma mater for decades on end. Philip Fulmer was almost certainly the last of his breed.

Born and raised in Winchester, Tennessee in the south-central part of the state just across the Alabama state line Fulmer grew up in the very geometric center of the UT-Bama rivalry. Though Fulmer was quite talented enough as a prep lineman to earn high level interest as a college recruit there was only one choice for him and he would not be dissuaded. Fulmer matriculated at UT in 1968 and walked on to Doug Dickey’s team. His hard work and commitment to UT football earned him a scholarship and established him on the offensive line. He played on an SEC championship winning team as a sophomore in 1969 and an 11-1 Sugar Bowl winning team in 1970. The Vols lost only five games in Fulmer’s three years as a player. He loved Tennessee and he loved football. When he graduated he could only envision one career. Fulmer had to coach. Needless to say, when it came to his coaching ambitions there was, as always, only one school.

Immediately after graduating, Fulmer coached Tennessee’s freshman linebackers. After six years coaching various positions at Vanderbilt and Wichita State he returned to Knoxville as an assistant coach in 1980. He would serve continuously as a football coach at UT for the next twenty-eight years. Fulmer worked faithfully as an assistant to Johnny Majors, the legendry former Volunteer running back, from 1980 until 1992. Over half way into the 1992 season the University controversially let Majors go due to health problems. Feelings on the move ran high and at a difficult time for the school Fulmer was a wise and reliable choice as successor.

Apart from keeping the peace, Fulmer's mandate was simple: arrest the meteoric rise of upstart rival Florida. Majors' SEC championships in 1985, ‘89 and ’90 appeared to put the Vols back in the big time after decades of subservience to Paul Bryant's hated Crimson Tide. But in 1990 and ’91 a hot young head coaching commodity named Steve Spurrier arrived in Gainesville and immediately began turning UF into a football giant.

Fulmer worked every bit as hard as any rival to build his Tennessee program. He even began to do what no UT coach had done in decades by stealing recruits from the back yards of conference rivals. Some of the greatest Vols of the 1990s hailed from states that rarely if ever sent a coveted prep star to Knoxville before Fulmer. Jamal Lewis came from Georgia, Darwin Walker from South Carolina, Travis Henry from Florida, Tee Martin from Alabama. Fulmer even drew national talent from areas beyond the south, including the phenomenal receiver Peerless Price from right under Buckeye noses in Ohio.

While SEC rivals other than Florida suffered through periods of coaching mediocrity (Ray Goff and Jim Donnan at Georgia, Billy Brewer at Mississippi, Mike DuBose at Alabama, Terry Bowden at Auburn) Fulmer’s teams reflected his own consistent, methodical, efficient and unflappable style. His first full season in charge coincided with the SEC divisional split and new championship game format. From 1993 to 2001 Tennessee never finished lower than second in the SEC east. Seven of those nine seasons the eastern divisional champion won the conference. Almost every year during the 1990s Florida vs. Tennessee constituted a de facto SEC title game. And for all Fulmer’s effort, Florida generally won.

Fulmer faced Steve Spurrier as a head coach nine times. His unimpressive record of 2-7 does not adequately reflect his work and accomplishments as UT head coach. From 1995 through 1998 the Vols went an amazing 45-5. Three of those losses came against Florida. Tennessee fans hated Spurrier. As Fulmer steadily built his program during the mid-nineties around his most prominent recruiting coup, Payton Manning, the Vols dropped five straight to Florida. Fulmer’s first clash with the Gators came on the road in mid-September 1993. Florida was ranked 3-0 and Spurrier had yet to lose a home game.

For a man apparently able to accomplish whatever he desired Steve Spurrier behaved with more public displays of emotion than almost any southern coach before him. At one point drawing a 15-yard unsportsman-like conduct penalty for protesting a holding call too vigorously and flinging his trademark visor toward a referee. Such displayed seemed totally unnecessary. Freshman quarterback Danny Wuerffel threw for 231 yards and three touchdowns with apparent ease. The game remained close, finishing 34-41, but UT made crucial mistakes. On the opening kick of the second half return man Nilo Silvan fumbled and gave Florida only 30 yards to drive for a TD. After the game Tennessee receiver admitted to a reporter that the Vols could not get over the ‘big game’ hump. In contrast Spurrier was yet to lose to Georgia, Tennessee or Auburn in three seasons as head coach.

In the end it all came at once for Fulmer. He beat Spurrier and earned Tennessee’s first national championship in half a century all in the same year. Before the 1998 meeting Fulmer answered media questions about the Gators with chagrin, saying:

“We’ve lost three SEC games in three years but people only want to talk about Florida. I share their passion, but it gets frustrating.”

Quarterback Payton Manning, running back Jay Graham, and stand-out defensive end Leonard Little had all graduated. After five straight losses to UF and rebuilding after graduating such stars, few gave Tennessee a prayer. But the Vols did exactly what the situation called for, playing a careful, conservative game. Tee Martin threw only twenty times, completing a paltry seven for 64 yards – not Manning-like numbers to say the least. Fortunately senior receiver Peerless Price converted one of those completions for a twenty-nine yard touchdown. Senior linebacker Al Wilson was everywhere, forcing three fumbles – one from the quarterback in the backfield, one from a receiver in open space, and one from a running back at the line of scrimmage. Dave Cutcliff’s supremely organized offense put together 170 yards on the ground; much by a young back and future star named Jamal Lewis who gained 81 yards on 20 carries. But even giving up four turnovers the Gators still took the affair to overtime. The Vols were desperate and the atmosphere could not have been tenser. When Florida came away with nothing from the first overtime possession victory became almost palpable for the home fans. Neyland roared, but again victory seemed destined to slip away when the Vols lost ten yards on their first two downs. Fortunately Tee Martin remained calm and showed enough presence of mind to take a 14 yard rushing gain with Florida back in deep pass coverage. That gave his kicker a manageable distance for a narrow 20-17 victory.

The relief in Knoxville was so great that the difference felt so much bigger than one overtime kick. With the monkey finally off their collective backs the Volunteers sailed to a 13-0 year and claimed the first ever BCS championship crown. Fulmer's program continued to compete at the highest level of SEC play but if surpassing Florida was the ultimate measure of success, 1998 was an aberration.

Bear Bryant always said that the University of Florida was the one SEC school he feared could become a dominant power with the right coach. He never lived to see that coach take the reigns in Gainesville, though his Crimson Tide did face and beat him once as a player. That loss, by three points in Tuscaloosa as a sophomore, was one of only nine games the Gators lost in Steve Spurrier’s three seasons as quarterback. He was a winner, plain and simple. Even growing up in Johnson City, Tennessee, a small mountain town in the far north-eastern corner of the state, Spurrier’s extraordinary talents garnered national attention. He not only lettered in three sports, but starred on a national scale. In three seasons pitching for Science Hill Prep he never lost a game and led his team to two consecutive state championships. Somehow Spurrier was even better at football and earned Prep All-America honors as a senior.

Though he grew up in the heart of Volunteer country Steve Spurrier decided to accept Ray Grave's scholarship offer and matriculated at the University of Florida in 1963. Like all Florida coaches during the first nine decades of Gator football Graves never fielded outstanding teams. That his .685 winning percentage ranks as second amongst UF coaches in the modern era not called Spurrier or Myer significantly reflects the fact that he enjoyed the benefits of having Spurrier as a player three of his ten seasons.

Spurrier and Fulmer in more recent times

Spurrier was, and still is, an amusing blend of utterly old-school and assertively innovative. His three-sport letterman, all-American, small-town High School career and his dual contribution passing-punting exploits in football possess something of a 1930s feel. Late on in a home date against Shug Jordan’s Auburn Tigers on October 29th 1966 Spurrier famously waved off Florida’s kicker on fourth down and booted the game winning points himself. The Gators triumphed 30-27 and the next week Heisman ballots were mailed out to voters. With Florida then 7-0 and ranked ninth, a 27 of 40 passing performance for a then SEC record 259 yards probably tipped the balance in his favor. Punting six times with a 47 yard average and converting the game winning place kick can't have hurt, either.

Jordan had warned his Tiger team all week that with a wild-card like Spurrier in the backfield Florida might well attempt a fake field goal. As Spurrier waved his kicker off with time expiring Jordan told his players:

“You’d better hope this is a fake because Spurrier kicks this he’ll make it.”

That was Steve Spurrier. Things went his way. His talent seemed to always make the difference. But if his multi-sport home-town heroism and quarterback/punter role were old-school, his rushing yards out of a vertical passing offense were more futuristic than the other running quarterbacks of his generation, most of whom played from the wishbone. In three seasons at Florida Spurrier went 392 of 692 through the air for 4,848 yards and 87 touchdowns. He added 442 yards on the ground. For the mid 1960s those figures were extremely impressive. Great quarterbacks at Texas, Nebraska or Oklahoma were more likely to make 4,000 yards rushing and 400 through the air.

Spurrier’s talent-driven Midas touch continued into his coaching career. So too did his love of flashy, innovative offense. Beginning with one season as Florida quarterbacks coach in 1978 he moved through various college and pro jobs before taking his first head coaching position at Duke in 1987. Since William Murray retired in 1965 no Duke coach had achieved a better win percentage than .440 and a few 6-5 seasons constituted the high water marks of Blue Devil football. Duke had not been to a bowl since 1961 and had no ACC championship since 1962. In Spurrier's second and third seasons Duke finished 7-4-1 and 8-4, winning the ACC that latter year. The Blue Devils have not won a championship or had a coach better than .330 since. Spurrier was obviously a hot commodity and when Galen Hall’s tenure in Gainesville came to a tumultuous end amidst NCAA rule violation accusation mid-season in 1989 it was no surprise who UF named as successor.

In some ways Spurrier's coaching was old-school. He could be gruff and was often aloof with his players. He ran a very tight ship. But he was also outspoken and not infrequently made public inflammatory comments or jokes. He told students at a prep rally before playing Auburn in 1991 that a fire had ravaged the AU library and burnt all twenty books. He finished:

“The real tragedy is that fifteen had not yet been colored yet!”

That kind of cocky self-assurance brought a new era to SEC football. It came as quite a surprise from a man coaching at Florida, which had never won a championship of any kind prior to his arrival. Spurrier changed that in two seasons.

By the early 1990s the state of Florida had transformed from a sparsely inhabited swampy region with an unlivable climate into an economic hotspot with an exploding population. Young athletic talent was now plentiful enough to sustain winning college football programs. Bobby Bowden’s Florida State Seminoles and Jimmy Johnson’s Miami Hurricanes made Florida the college football state of the decade in the 1980s and left the state’s flagship public university behind. Galen Hall recruited well against in-state rivals but couldn’t seem to coach those players up to the highest level. Spurrier took over Hall's squad and brought a confidence to Gainesville that affected a sea change. He brought Florida’s offensive up to Miami’s speed and Florida State’s aggressiveness. The Gators went 9-2 in his first season and topped the SEC standing but could not claim the conference crown or appear in any bowl because of NCAA probation. That mattered little. Florida fans only had one more year to wait. Junior quarterback Shane Matthews broke the SEC total passing offense record with almost 4,000 passing yards the next season and won the SEC officially for the first time ever.

Florida failed to win ten games only two times during Spurrier’s tenure. From 1990 to 2001 he went a staggering 122-27-1. His teams won six SEC titles and a national championship. He was named SEC coach of the year five times. After the conference split to two divisions in 1992 Florida failed to win the East Division only twice under Spurrier, coming second both times. Spurrier took UF to eleven straight bowls, winning six including two Sugar Bowls and two Orange Bowls. What he accomplished in a single decade as a coach during the 1990s can only be compared to Bear Bryant’s achievements in the 1970s and Bud Wilkinson’s run in the 1950s. That is hallowed company.

Florida's national championship did not come with complete ease. After the Gators romped to an unbeaten 12-0 record in 1995 they faced Nebraska in the Fiesta Bowl. 11 point victories over Auburn and Florida State had been UF’s closest wins by a considerable margin and blowing opponents out of the water had become routine. But on New Year's Day 1996 Tom Osbourne’s Huskers gave UF a taste of their own medicine in a lopsided 24-62 thrashing. Spurrier highlighted 1996 as the year for Gator redemption. Florida’s key players returned, led by Danny Wuerffel who had claimed both the Davey O’Brien and Sam Baugh awards as a junior the previous year. Off the field Wuerffel was humility incarnate. Quiet, unassuming, impeccably polite and deeply religious he lacked his coach’s cocky assertiveness. On it, he was more like his mentor. Though perhaps less flashy, he was equally unhesitant, ruthless, and intelligent as a down-field passer. Wuerffel was always crushingly reliable in the clutch moments. He claimed the Heisman trophy in 1996 - another sore spot for Volunteer fans who felt that Payton manning deserved the award in 1997 when he lost out to Michigan's Charles Woodson. It just seemed Tennessee could never top Florida during the 1990s.

No game show cased Florida’s quick striking and potent offense like the 1996 trip to Neyland stadium. A close Tennessee-Florida game in Gainesville the previous year had gotten out of hand in the second half and ended 62-37. Tennessee players, coaches and fans salivated at the prospect of getting the Gators on their turf. The Volunteers worked for a year to prepare for thier chance at revenge, but once again the upstart rival refused to take come-uppance. Wuerffel threw four touchdowns to four receivers in the first twenty minutes while the Gator defense forced three turnovers in reply. UF led 35-0 almost before Tennessee fans could find their seats. So thorough was Florida’s whirlwind start and so total the trauma that even after Wuerffel finished only 11 of 22 while Manning threw for over 400 yards and closed the final tally to 35-29 the affair still had the feel of an unambiguous Gator rampage.

If there is one word to describe Spurrier’s teams it must be complete. They possessed everything on offense that he had shown in his own playing career: the gambler’s abandon combined with the expert’s skill; the pace and absolute shock-and-awe explosiveness; the innovation and disregard for the institutional habits of southern football. They also had a young guru as defensive coordinator whose confidence and productivity matched Spurrier’s own. Bob Stoops would go on to make a fine head coach himself in due course. For the time being, his punishing defensive style did more than enough to give Spurrier’s offenses room to work.

The Gators’ only loss in 1996 came in a 3 point nail-biter in Tallahassee. Fortunately for Spurrier, the Sugar Bowl committee invited FSU to face the SEC champion and gave Spurrier a second shot. The game quickly became personal after a Florida State player told reporters that the Seminoles had attempted to knock Wuerffel out of the game in Tallahasee. A public war of words ensued and in New Orleans January 1st 1997 the animosity was palpable. But the emotion and tension did not cloud Spurrier’s mind. He put FSU completely off balance with several new wrinkles. Firstly the Gators implemented a silent count with center Jeff Mitchell snapping the ball at his own discretion after receiving a ‘ready’ signal from his quarterback. Secondly, Florida ran almost exclusively from the shotgun. Wuerffel even scrambled 16 yards late in the third quarter for an uncharacteristic rushing touchdown. It seemed that every Gator produced the game of his life. Even punter Robbie Stevenson kicked for an average of 48 yards. Everything went Florida’s way. FSU couldn’t adjust and UF avenged a three point loss with a crushing 52-20 win. When Ohio State knocked off the Sun Devils in Pasadena later that day Florida had its national championship. Steve Spurrier, Florida’s chosen son had led the SEC’s perennial also-ran to the Promised Land in only six years. UF has never looked back.

Phillip Fulmer performed admirably as head coach in Knoxville at a difficult time. No other team even came close to matching Florida's records, offensive production, and championships. Fulmer's Tennessee teams did everything they could. But, as Bear Bryant prophesied, Florida's time had come.




Fulmer's pre-game talk from his last head-to-head UT-UF game vs. Spurrier

SEC coaching rivalries: Paul Bryant vs. Ralph Jordan, 1958-75

Perhaps no coach in SEC history became so intensely identified with his alma mater through a career of long and loyal service than Ralph “Shug” Jordan. The Selma native lettered at Auburn (or Alabama Polytechnic Institute as it was known until 1960) in football, basketball and baseball. As a senior in 1932 Jordan was named the school’s most outstanding athlete. That was no mean feat on an API football team that went undefeated at 9-0-1 to claim a share of the last Southern Conference title before the inception of the SEC in 1933.

Jordan loved Auburn. With the exception of wartime tours of duty in Europe and the Pacific and a few years in exile as an assistant coach at UGa, he literally spent his entire adult life on 'the plains'. A year after graduating he returned to API as head basketball coach and assistant football coach. He served through the Depression without great distinction in either sport. API football and basketball both hovered slightly above .500 during the 1930s. Jordan was a soft spoken coach, never the kind of coach to make great waves or draw attention. But there was no doubting his determination. Nor his courage, given his wartime service record. Jordan participated in the invasions of Sicily, Italy, Normandy and Okinawa. He was wounded seriously enough in the Normandy campaign to require lengthy recuperation and transfer to the Pacific. His service earned him both the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. Toward the end of his life as he struggled through a losing battle with aggressive and painful cancer Bear Bryant commented to a reporter:

“[Ralph Jordan] has more courage in his little finger than I’ve got in my entire body.”

Understandably after such selfless wartime service Jordan wanted to return to the place and work that he loved. He resumed his work as API basketball coach for one season, but he found the appeal of football growing and decided to take an assistant position with the professional Miami Seahawks. After one year Jordan moved to Athens as an assistant to Wallace Butts. His time at Georgia coincided with Earl Brown’s disastrous tenure as head football coach in Auburn. After Brown posted an 0-10 record in 1950 there was only one choice for API. The school's most loyal son received the call.

Jordan didn’t right the ship overnight, but in his quiet, committed way he began coaching with simplicity, clarity and humanity. Shug kept his play-book very simple, running only variations of roughly ten plays but insisting that they be run well every time. He also refused to exact too high a price from his players in practice. He once told a reporter:

“We don’t eat ourselves alive in practice… It’s unthinkable for us to lose a Saturday game in a Tuesday scrimmage.”

After a three decade hiatus following a dispute regarding gate receipts from the 1907API-Alabama game the state’s leading football schools resumed their annual series in 1948. Since the 1907 fixture the Crimson Tide had become a national power, winning national titles under two coaches and claiming multiple Rose Bowl crowns. The Plainsmen, on the other hand, remained a regional power at best and were clear second in the state. Men of Alabama’s less favored institution chaffed under the feeling of second-class status. Athletics offered a way to regain some pride, but from 1948 to 1953 Bama won five of six. Jordan’s first two seasons were tough going. He followed a 5-5 record his first year with a disappointing 2-8 campaign. But through a combination of confidence, charm and some dubious recruiting practices that quickly landed API with six-years of NCAA probation Jordan began to convince the state’s better athletes to play for him. As API’s stock rose the Crimson Tide fell. From 1954 to 1958 Shug took five straight over the state’s flagship university, restoring API pride and giving the Plainsmen their longest winning streak in the rivalry until recent times.

The API 1957 national championship team

Jordan’s career was not one long string of championships. Many might not even consider his coaching success to be outstanding. Shug coached Auburn football for twenty-five seasons from 1951 to 1975, compiling a record of 175-83-7. 1957 provided his only conference and national titles. But Jordan's teams finished second in the conference seven times. After his first four seasons as coach Auburn finished below third in the conference only ten times in twenty one seasons. That doesn’t sound too impressive at first. Nor does a 5-7 bowl record without a single victory in any of the four major New Year’s Day games. But finishing in the top third of SEC play in almost two of every three seasons over several decades is very difficult. Ask a coach who has tried. Very, very few have done better.

Jordan was voted coach of the year by the national coaches association, the AP and the SEC. Even though NCAA regulations prohibited API from accepting their Sugar Bowl bid, it was a great year. But Auburn fans don’t remember Shug for one great season, or even for a considerable number of very respectable seasons. They remember him as a consistent, committed, unassuming, unerringly loyal servant of their school. Shug Jordan was, more than anything, an Auburn man. His legacy would be remembered with more reverence by people outside of eastern Alabama had Jordan not suffered the misfortune of spending much of his coaching tenure across the state from a man whose legend became utterly insurmountable.

Paul Bryant was simply a football man. Growing up dirt poor in Fordye, Arkansas life didn’t offer many opportunities. Bryant earned his life-long nickname by agreeing to wrestle a bear at a travelling carnival. He was promised a dollar for every minute he stayed in the ring but never saw a cent because the bear’s muzzle came off and Bryant wisely ran away. Bryant was no coward. When Frank Thomas offered him a scholarship to play football for Alabama he grabbed the first real opportunity life had given him with both hands. The Bear played hurt on numerous occasions, including the entirety of a famous game against Mississippi State on a broken leg. He went to be the most demanding coach in the business, but no one could call him a hypocrite. Bryant gave 100% as a Bama player, despite not possessing the most talent. He played opposite Don Hutson on the 1934 Rose Bowl winning team and was jokingly known as “the other end”. Hutson, not Bryant, went on to set countless NFL receiving records. Bryant later said of his own coaching career that he was an ordinary coach of great players but a great coach of average players. He boasted that he could make his players think they were all-Americans. That boast wasn’t arrogance, it was fact.

Alabama has never had a Heisman Trophy winner. Through a quarter-century of unrivaled success in Tuscaloosa the Bear never produced a single player that critics viewed as individually peerless. Bryant excelled by producing not a handful of great players but hundreds of players like himself. He made men play above their ability, consistently give full effort, and perform as a team far beyond individual capability. Bryant’s records speak for themselves. After graduation he worked as an assistant to Thomas. He never wanted to do anything but coach. Bryant committed his entire life and legacy to the game and the men football can produce. When the U.S. entered WWII he went to the Iowa pre-flight program and coached with various future greats including Woody Hayes to help physically prepare pilots for war. Bryant coached the University of Kentucky from 1946 to 1953, going 60-23-5. More than half a century later Bryant still holds the best winning percentage of any Kentucky coach. The Wildcats have yet to repeat his 1950 SEC and Sugar Bowl championships.

The Bear’s practices were demanding; probably unnecessarily so. After taking over a lifeless Texas A&M program in 1954 he famously drove his entire football squad into rural west Texas and held brutal workouts for two weeks. Half his team quit and the Bear posted the only losing year of his career with a 1-9 record. A lot of commentators look at that camp as a sacrificial separation of men from boys that founded the nucleus of an A&M program that lost only four games over the next three seasons. It seems more likely that Junction was the disaster it appeared. For the only time in his career the Bear lost most of his team, literally and metaphorically. Bryant was a great coach for the same reason Alexander was a great general. His players believed in him and would do anything for him. At Junction, the Bear learned how far was too far. He remained a grueling, exacting, gruff and demanding mean cuss of a coach, but he never pushed a team so far again.

In 1955 Jennings Whitworth’s Tide went an unacceptable 0-10. The next two seasons were little better at a combined 4-14-2. A university accustomed to Rose Bowls and national acclaim did not like losing football games to the state’s agricultural school. The Bear took over in 1958. His first Crimson Tide team finished 5-4-1. That was the only time in twenty-five seasons that Bryant did not take Alabama to a Bowl. In a quarter-century, without ever incurring any penalty for any kind of NCAA violation, Bryant went 232-46-9. He went to 24 bowls with a record of 11-10-2, winning seven Sugar Bowls, two Orange Bowls and a Cotton Bowl. His teams earned six national championships and ten SEC titles. In an incredible eleven year stretch from 1971 to 1981 the Bear’s teams won nine SEC titles and finished second the other two years. After finishing sixth and fourth in the SEC his first two seasons Bryant never came in lower than third in the SEC standings - twenty-three consecutive seasons in the top third of the SEC! His coaching record is not only peerless, it will never be matched. No one will ever come close.

Year in, year out with whatever players he had, Bryant found a way to win. He once called over to the Auburn football office at 6 a.m during Iron Bowl week. Someone answered the phone and told him that no coaches were in their offices yet. The Bear asked:

“Don’t they care about football over at Auburn?”

That was the effort he demanded. That was the effort he gave himself. When he saw his all-American quarterback Joe Namath slacking off in practice and heard other players complaining, he instructed an assistant to give Namath a dirty old jersey. Bryant told his quarterback in front of the entire team that he had to work harder than the other players to earn a clean jersey back. That was the summer of 1966. The Tide went unbeaten that year, won a national title and Namath went on to the New York Jets where he did quite well.

Everything Paul Bryant did at Alabama he did well, but especially beating Auburn. Over a quarter century the Bear went 19-6 against the Tigers. The record prior to Jordan’s retirement is slightly more favorable to Auburn at 13-5. But out competing Bryant on a consistent basis was simply impossible. Even the best coaches failed to keep pace. But every so often Shug’s patience, tenacity, and humble resolve would produce teams that caught their perennially more favored in-state nemesis off guard. Sometimes, as if in response to shows of hubris of Homeric proportions, the gods themselves intervened on Auburn’s behalf.

Such was the case with Auburn’s most legendary Iron Bowl triumph. Heading into the Birmingham showdown on December 2nd 1972 the second ranked Crimson Tide were 10-0 and already had the SEC title wrapped up. Bama had not lost a regular season game in two years, since Auburn’s last Iron Bowl triumph in 1969. The line on the game was Bama by 16. Auburn men had every right to take exception to such an insult. The Tigers were 9-1 with only a lopsided loss to LSU blemishing another manifestly respectable season for Shug’s boys.

Despite Auburn’s determination to upstage their rival the Tiger offense accomplished nothing all day. Superior execution and athletes appeared to have made the difference, as they so often had before, with Bama leading 16-3 deep into the fourth quarter. With 5:30 left in the game Auburn forced a punt on the Alabama forty yard line. As Greg Gantt wound up for his kick Auburn committed about everyone but their return man to the rush. The Bama line collapsed almost instantly and linebacker Bill Newton spread his huge body in front of Gantt with abandon. The ball bounced back with enough force to carry it to the Bama 25, where defensive back David Langer reeled it in without apparent effort and strode into the end zone. Langer’s move from Auburn’s line into rushing the punter and on through Bama’s goal-line took place in one fluid motion. Auburn celebrated, but at 16-10 the victory appeared a moral one.

The gods had other ideas. After receiving the ensuing kickoff the Alabama offense once again reached only their own forty-yard line before stalling. By that point only 1:30 remained. The chances of Auburn achieving offensively in a minute and a half what they had failed to manage in the preceding fifty-eight were negligible. With nothing to lose Jordan signaled for his team to send everything at the kick again. Incredibly Auburn repeated the penetration of an Alabama line that seemed to evaporate under the pressure as it hadn’t done in two entire seasons. Once again Newton reached the ball first, swatting it as it left Gantt’s foot. Once again it fell into the path of Langer, and once again the Auburn defensive back sailed without breaking stride for a score. Auburn won 17-16, derailed Alabama’s national title hunt, and earned a Gator Bowl berth for themselves. Without having gained anything worth remembering on offense all day Auburn posted an immortal victory on the strength of two special teams TDs and a missed Bama point-after. The odds were so staggeringly improbable that even the most casual of fans can readily ascribe the legendary “Punt, Bama, punt!” Iron Bowl of 1972 to the football gods. This game was their gift to a long suffering API graduate who spent his life faithfully toiling in the Bear’s expansive shadow.

Two years later, the 1974 Iron Bowl featured undefeated 1st ranked Alabama and 4th ranked one-loss Auburn. The national as well as SEC championship was on the line. But in the state of Alabama one thing is more important than national fame. Bryant told a reporter succinctly in the run up to the game:

“The state championship of Alabama means everything. This is for bragging rights for the next 365 days.”

Alabama had limped through the season with various injuries, finding ways to win with whoever was available. Starting quarterback Gary Rutledge was lost early. Later his replacement Richard Todd missed three games with a knee injury. Despite the unblemished record and top ranking it had been an ugly season from the Tide, including a late comeback 8-7 win over a Florida State team that had lost sixteen straight. The ’74 Iron Bowl proved no exception. Both teams moved the ball but also made their share of mistakes. Only gritty special teams play kept the Tide unbeaten.

Early in the first quarter a 35 yard strike to tight end Ozzie Newsome took Bama into Auburn territory. The drive continued to the Tigers’ three yard line before Todd lost a fumble. Bama’s next possession started deep in their own half after a clipping penalty on Auburn’s punt. After grinding their way into Auburn territory the Tide seemed to have settled down when Todd hit Willy Selby on a short swing pass that the receiver converted for a 45-yard touchdown. After Bama extended the lead to 10 on their next possession Auburn responded with an impressive long drive, pounding the same basic inside running play with Sedrick McIntyre most of the 71 yards to the end zone. The teams would have finished the half tied at ten except for Alabama end Leroy Cook managing to get his long arms in the way of a seemingly simple 21-yard field goal attempt from Auburn’s Chris Wilson. Alabama extended the lead to 17-7 early in the third quarter behind the gritty running of Calvin Culliver and Randy Billingsley. Auburn responded with a 41-yard touchdown pass from Phil Gargis, only to see the score wiped off because the receiver had stepped out of bounds prior to catching the ball. In the fourth quarter Todd was stuffed in brutal fashion on 4th and goal before Auburn drove 72-yards two possessions later on a touchdown drive that included a twelve yard pass from a fake field goal attempt. After a two-point conversation failed Bama led 17-13. Auburn gained one last possession with a minute remaining but defensive end Mike Dubose sealed the victory by busting up a developing reverse hand-off in the back field. Dubose batted the ball from Gargis’ hand and fell on it gratefully.

As Auburn had in their famous win two years earlier, Alabama rode their luck. In the grand scheme however, the Bear made his own luck. As a freshman Mike Dubose had suffered an excruciating injury when another player accidentally stamped on his crotch in a scrum. Dubose underwent surgery to remove a crushed testicle and doctors told Bryant the boy could not play again. When he heard the news Dubose threatened to transfer to Troy State and continue playing there. Bryant realized that if an athlete that tough wanted to play football so badly, he should play it for Bama. Dubose was the kind of player that gave everything. He gave as much as Bryant demanded. He gave as much as Bryant had given for Frank Thomas.

Players like Dubose, whom Bryant seemed to produce or find by the truck-load, were the reason Alabama won so many titles in that magical quarter century. No one else could keep up. In many senses it is hardly fair to say Bryant had any rivals. His career truly was peerless. And yet, without the constant, unyielding service of Ralph Jordan there is no knowing how much farther behind Auburn might have fallen. Bryant respected and admired Jordan more than anyone. He told viewers on his Sunday morning TV show after the 1973 Iron Bowl:

“Coach Jordan’s a wonderful person and I consider him a close personal friend.”

That was a friendship built on competition that bred mutual respect. Bryant’s commendation of another coach’s career should be high enough praise for any critic.



The Bear not cooperating with a new fangled female sideline reporter.

Appendix

Sorry for the long delay in posting, if anyone noticed. I was sidetracked by some rather serious exams. I'm done. I passed. It's time for football.

As an appendix to my recent Vince Dooley-Pat Dye post here are some gratuitous Bo Jackson/Herschel Walker highlights.




Simply the greatest, ever.




This guy was pretty good, too.

SEC coaching rivalries: Vince Dooley v. Pat Dye, 1982-88

The Auburn Tigers went 0-10 in 1950. That was last season in Earl Brown's disastrous tenure. A 3-22 mark in three seasons was simply unacceptable. In 1951 a young quarterback named Vince Dooley entered the program and a new head coach, Ralph “Shug” Jordon, took over at the helm. Shug began to slowly right the ship. A 7-13 record over his first two years gave way to 7-3-1 and 8-3 campaigns in 1953 and 1954. In the latter year Shug and Dooley did what Auburn coaches are hired to do: beat 'Bama.

Quarterback and coach grew together as Dooley learned from Jordon’s workman-like approach. He returned to Auburn a few years after graduating as a history graduate student and assistant coach. Dooley’s youthful enthusiasm and skill attracted enough attention on Jordon’s perennial winning staffs that the struggling University of Georgia took a chance on him in 1964. As a 32 year old rookie head coach, his first game could hardly have been more difficult. Dooley took a team that had gone 4-5-1 in 1963 into an opener on the road in Tuscaloosa against Bear Bryant’s Crimson Tide.

Dooley was too young to be scared. He felt confident of his ability to combine Jordon's wisdom with his own energy and out work older coaches. He prepared his team with feverish commitment all off-season and traveled to Alabama on September 19th somehow convinced that he would shock the football world with a stunning road win. Georgia lost 31-3. Alabama went on to finish 10-1 and win a national title. Dooley discovered to his chagrin that old coaches could work quite hard themselves. Even still, Dooley’s 7-3-1 first-year record signaled an impressive turn around for the Dogs. A year later Dooley had a second chance as Bama opened their title defense in Athens on September 18th 1965.

The Bear was high on his team and told a reporter in the lead up to the game that Steve Sloan was “the best quarterback I’ve coached” – high praise from a man who had coached “Broadway” Joe Namath. Sloan started slowly, even tossing a pick that the Bulldogs ran back for a 10-0 lead. A mistake-filled affair that possessed all the hall marks of a season opener was still tied at ten deep in the fourth quarter before Sloan led a 74 yard touchdown drive to take the lead with less than four minutes remaining. Dooley then did with timely courage what he had failed to achieve by pure effort a year before. He called a trick play. Sophomore quarterback Kirby Moore threw to his End Pat Hodgson at the Georgia thirty-five. Hodgson immediately lateraled back across the field to Halfback Bob Taylor. None of the referees noticed that Hodgson’s knee was down before the pass and fortune favored the brave as Taylor raced untouched for a touchdown, giving the Dogs a chance to tie the game. But the young coach wasn’t done. Perhaps still smarting from his embarrassing first outing and wanting to prove himself on the biggest stage he doubled down and went for two. Moore hit Hodgson again on a pass play thrown from an obvious rushing formation. Georgia knocked off the champ, 18-17. The SEC’s youngest coach had shocked its most revered.

Georgia fans wanted more than notable upset wins. The Dogs had won only two SEC titles since WWII, in 1948 and 1959. Meanwhile Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee had enough SEC trophies to take a bath in, while in-state rival Georgia Tech had done well enough to confidently striking out on its own as an independent. Georgia fans wanted a national power program. Dooley delivered. Three weeks after the Alabama win he took his over-matched Bulldogs into Ann Arbor and ground-out a 15-7 win over then unbeaten Michigan. In addition to organized, savvy and hard-working Dooley was also a genuine intellect. Not many head coaches can boast M.A. theses with titles matching “Senator James Thomas Heflin and the Democratic Party Revolt in Alabama.” When he finally retired in 1988 Georgians all the way up to Lieutenant Governor (now U.S. Senator) Zell Miller expressed public hope that he would enter politics. They didn’t just say that because he had won 200 football games. Dooley was actually mentally qualified for public office.

Brains, work, ethic, ambition and charm all helped Dooley make Georgia Tech’s in-state recruiting edge a thing of the past. UGa gained a strangle-hold on the best in-state talent that it has never relinquished. Over twenty-five seasons Dooley developed and coached that talent pool to a 201-77. He won SEC titles in 1966, 68 and 76 before adding three more in consecutive seasons from 1980-82. He was Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year in 1976 and won the Walter Camp award in 1980. His 8-12 bowl record included a Sugar Bowl win over Notre Dame and two Cotton Bowl championships. Most importantly to Georgia fans tired of languishing in Bama and Tennessee’s combined shadow, Dooley earned an elusive national title in 1980 on the back of a phenomenon freshman running back named Herschel Walker.

The 1980 Bulldogs were perhaps the quintessential Dooley team: unfancied, underrated, far from flashy, organized, and fortuitous. Week after week Georgia seemed to possess the favor of the gods. Despite three first-half fumbles at Tennessee the Dogs recovered to beat the Vols 16-15. Clemson out gained them by 206 yards in the first two quarters but eventually lost 14-20. Trailing 13-10 but looking likely to score, South Carolina’s George Rogers fumbled on the Bulldog’s seventeen with five minutes to play, allowing Georgia to hold on. Against Florida Georgia trailed by a point and were pinned inside the ten with only 90 seconds to play. After grinding only as far as the twenty-six yard line with time expiring fast a Gator defensive back slipped in a one-on-one tackling situation and Georgia went seventy-four yards in one play for the win.

In the 1981 Sugar Bowl few gave Georgia a prayer. The undersized Bulldogs had managed to complete an 11-0 regular season without facing a single opponent that finished in the top twenty. 9-1-1 Notre Dame, on the other hand, had lost only to an eight win USC team on the road. On the Bulldog’s first possession Walker went down to a bruising challenge and was helped off the field. Team doctors told the freshman stud that his shoulder was dislocated and his day was over. But Herschel hadn’t travelled to New Orleans to watch. Nor had he completely eclipsed the previous NCAA freshman rushing total through timidity and caution. He instructed the doctors to pop his shoulder back into place before the next offensive possession. By the time the clock ran down to zero the Irish had gained 328 yards to Georgia’s total was a paltry 138. More astoundingly, Walker accounted for 150 yards alone. The rest of the Georgia rushing attack helped him out with negative twelve yards! Even by the unimpressive standards of a Dooley team, Georgia’s passing on the day was irrelevant. Buck Belue made his one and only completion of the day with two minutes remaining. Georgia relied on gritty defense, special-teams momentum swingers, and the good will of the gods.

In the first quarter with the Irish already up by three UGa freshman Terry Hoage blocked a forty yards field goal try. Hoage was a former walk-on who had literally earned his scholarship by blocking field goals in practice. Georgia recovered the blocked kick and gained yardage but could do nothing on offense with Walker still receiving treatment. A 49-yard kick tied the game before Georgia’s kick coverage team eagerly capitalized on a ND special-teams error to recover a fumble only one yard from the end zone. Walker came back on to put the Dogs ahead a touchdown. Notre Dame held the next kickoff only to lose it again up near midfield when defensive captain Frank Ros put a punishing hit on Irish fullback John Sweeney. The Dogs scored again from a short field, entirely on Walker’s dynamic and tenacious running. Somehow, Georgia led 17-3 at halftime.

Mid-way through the third quarter UGa all-America cornerback Scott Woerner added to his first half interception by batting down a Blair Kiel pass in the end zone that looked certain to find its intended receiver. That play was followed immediately by an Irish field goal miss. Harry Oliver, who had opened the scoring from fifty yards out, would miss another kick later making him just one of four on the day. Keil found enough breathing room to lead one TD drive, making the score 17-10, but late in the fourth quarter with three minutes remaining Woerner added a second pick. He jumped the receiver's route on a slightly under thrown sideline deep ball on fourth down. Georgia only needed to drain the clock to be national champion.

Georgia won, with a 200-yard deficit on offense. Four turnovers and three missed field goals sank the Irish, who no doubt blamed themselves. But a classic Dooley team put up a classic Dooley performance. That was Georgia football from 1964 to 1988: unfashionable, organized, stout. Teams tended to turn the ball over against the Dogs.

Overall, Dooley’s success was emphatic. Against Georgia’s great rival and the coach’s alma mater the story was somewhat more mixed. In the fifteen seasons preceding his national title Dooley was an even 7-7-1 against his former mentor, despite the Tigers’ decreasingly impressive teams. Shug Jordon’s career fizzled out in 1975 with a 4-6-1 valedictory tour. His successor Doug Barfield did about as well as the guy taking over from a legend might expect. A losing start gave way to steady improvement, climaxing with a respectable 8-3 record in 1979 before going 5-6 the year the hated Bulldogs won it all. The University alumni base and administration had little patience after chaffing for years under the Bear’s weighty presence and now suffering the meteoric rise of the Dogs under the tutelage of a former Tiger letterman. Barfield was fired.

Surely the Auburn athletics office did not think of parallels with Vince Dooley when they hired a former UGa standout as their new head coach for the 1981 season. Pat Dye grew up in coastal Georgia, near Augusta. Even in the early 1950s when the Yellow Jackets were the state’s reigning football power, the coastal region was only ever for the Bulldogs. Dye played for Wally Butts, Georgia’s longest serving and most beloved coach before Dooley. He made all conference three times and all-America in 1959 and 1960. After a few years in the NFL and CFL Dye returned to college ranks as an assistant at Auburn’s first nemesis, Alabama. Dye learned under the Bear for nearly a decade, and learned well. He took his first head coaching job at East Carolina in 1976 and won almost fifty games in six seasons before moving on to Wyoming. In 1980 he began to turn the Cowboys around, earning the school its first winning record in quite some time. That resume was more than enough for Auburn fans desperate to turn the table on the school’s two more favored rivals.

Dye’s first year didn’t give Auburn fans too much to cheer about. In the two final games of a 5-6 1981 campaign Auburn lost to defending national champions Georgia and played poetic victim to Bama for the Bear’s 315th win. Auburn fans did not enjoy sitting in Legion Field watching Coach Bryant surpass Amos Stagg’s win tally. But Dye turned things around, as his former mentor must have suspected he would when he advised him not to take the Auburn job in the first place. The Bear knew that Dye would not be intimidated. Amongst many qualities essential for coaching success Dye possessed a remarkable confidence. He commented during his first year that Auburn sat geographically between two schools that had combined to dominate the SEC for the previous twelve seasons. His only comment on that fact was:

“Well, they aint got nothing but people. You can talk about the Alabama mystique and the Georgia mystique, but they’ve done it with people. Hell, we’ve got people, too.”

And they did; one in particular. Dye didn’t beat ‘Bama his first year, or compile a winning record. But his confidence beat out the Bear in the state’s most important recruiting struggle and secured Auburn the services of a young man named Bo.

The huge, irrepressible back powered for 4,303 yards in four seasons and claimed a Heisman Trophy. Jackson’s presence in the Auburn backfield helped Dye lead the Tigers to their best decade since the fifties. From 1982 through the 1990 season Dye never won less than eight games. In those nine seasons Auburn won ten games three times and eleven once. More importantly, the Tigers moved out from under their conference rivals’ dominance, winning the SEC championship four times. Dye even turned the ables on the Bear in 1982, giving the 'Bama legend only his sixth Iron Bowl loss in a quarter century in his last ever regular season game.

Dye’s Auburn career did not finish well. In September 1991 a former Tiger defensive back Eric Ramsey gave tapes of phone conversations between himself, Dye and several AU boosters to the Montgomery Advertiser. The conversations involved discussion of various payments that had been made to Ramsey with Dye’s knowledge. The controversy eventually led to NCAA sanctions, but as with all things in the SEC the W-L column tally proved the bottom line. Dye went 5-6 and 5-6-1 in 1991 and 1992 before the school finally pushed him out. Auburn fans would quite rightly argue that everyone was cheating in the 1990s. That doesn’t make cheating right, but it also doesn’t necessarily detract from an otherwise outstanding coaching career. And through the 1980s Dye’s career was just that. Great, even by comparison to Vince Dooley.

Dooley and Dye coached against one another seven times, each one leading a former rival against his alma mater with consummate professionalism. Dye held a clear edge, going 5-2 against Dooley. But those figures certainly reflect the careers of Herschel and Bo. Walker played three years in Athens before jumping early for the pros after the 1983 season. His first year he ran for an NCAA freshman record 1,616 yards - despite missing an entire game. In 1982, the only time the two lined up in opposing backfields as college players, Bo made an impressive but incomparable 829 yards as a freshman. Georgia won the head to head contest that year in Auburn, 19-14. In three seasons with Herschel Walker on the team the Dogs had lost only one regular season game and none in the SEC. From 1983 to 1985, with an uncontested Bo Jackson in the limelight, Auburn won three straight over Georgia.

In many ways Dye’s Tigers were the mirror image of Dooley’s Bulldogs. Dye generally ran the triple option wishbone well after it had gone out of style elsewhere. If he wanted to get flashy he switched to the deep-set I. Like Dooley he relied on tough running and rarely tried passing play deeper than the opposing linebacking corps. On November 12th 1983 Bo Jackson and the Tigers walked into Sanford stadium to meet the Bulldogs between the hedges. Even without Walker, Dooley had his Dogs at 8-0-1. Georgia hadn’t tasted defeat in conference play since 1979. But Dye’s 1983 Tigers were a different class than his first two teams. When Dye had his first team meeting in the spring of 1981 he told his players:

“I’m going to the Sugar Bowl and anyone who doesn’t want to go with me can leave.”

The confidence and will to win that made Dye think he could stand toe to toe with the Bear and Vince Dooley caused dozens of Auburn players to quit by the end of spring ball. But by 1983 it had bred a like-minded team. Before the final three minutes of the 1983 Georgia-Auburn contest the visitors had ground 359 yards, led by Bo Jackson’s less-than-innovative power running. In answer the Dogs only managed 90 yards running into the teeth of a Tiger defense that simply refused to move. Dye ran a 5-2 defense, front loaded against the SEC’s run-first approach. Anchored by monster nose-tackle Dowe Aughtman and shored up by lighter, faster linebackers like Gregg Carr, conservative offenses struggled to turn the corner on Auburn. And Dooley was certainly conservative with the ball.

Without Herschel Walker the Bulldogs couldn’t find the extra gear. In the final three minutes quarterback John Lastinger finally found his rhythm and led the Bulldogs on an 80 yard TD drive, making the score 13-7. Georgia safety David Painter recovered an onside kick and suddenly the decision looked in doubt for the first time all day. But Dye’s gutsy team booked its place in the Sugar Bowl after all. After seemingly catching a lifeline the Bulldogs managed negative six yards including two Auburn tackles for loss. After decades of Dooley-Bryant dominance in the SEC the Tigers had finally turned the corner.

Though Dooley coached at Georgia a quarter century, his very best years were clustered in the early 1980s when Herschel Walker was carrying the ball. But the decade as a whole belonged to Dye. Two coaches (who each graduated from the other’s school) perennially hovering around 10 wins and sharing six SEC titles in ten seasons. Two Heisman Trophy running backs each wearing the same number; both leaving lasting legacies as their programs’ favorite sons. That was SEC rivalry at its very best.

SEC coaching rivalries: Johnny Vaught vs. Paul Dietzel, 1955-1961

I doubt that the memory of any SEC coach towers over the program he led the way Johnny Vaught does Ole’ Miss. Fans and commentators only somewhat familiar with Southern football would doubtless point to the Bear at Alabama. But Paul Bryant is far from being Alabama’s only winning coach. Thomas and Wade before him, and Gene Stallings after him all earned national titles. Thomas and Wade both left Alabama with winning percentages over .810, comparing favorably to the Bear’s .824. Between 1947 and 1970, and a valedictory season in 1973, Vaught went 190-61-12 in Oxford – a win percentage of .745. The second best mark for a Mississippi coach over more than five games is N. P. Stauffer with .690 from 1911 to 1913. Since Vaught retired, David Cutcliff’s .600 effort from 1998 to 2004 is the closest any successor has come.

Even more significantly, Vaught’s six conference titles are the only ones Ole' Miss has ever won. Until the second coming Manning in the form of Eli, chances are that anything you know about the entire history of Rebel football happened with Vaught on the sideline.

Vaught grew up in Olney, Texas before moving to Fort Worth to live with his grandmother and attend Polytechnic Heights High School. He played his first varsity prep football game against Poly’s local rival, the legendry Masonic Home “Mighty Mites.” Poly lost 40-0. Vaught learned a lot about grit, resolve and team psychology from Poly’s frequent bouts with Masonic Home (which the Mites generally won despite considerable disadvantages in size and manpower).

As a guard in college, playing for TCU under Francis Schmidt, Vaught learned valuable lessons about strategy. TCU’s teams were known for offensive innovation in the 1930s. Schmidt, who moved on to Ohio State in 1934, and his successor Dutch Meyer, ran numerous variations of the single and double wings as well as the spread. Often throwing the ball 30-40 times a game in an age when 150 attempts a season was a lot, TCU confused and out strategized bigger opponents. None of this was lost on Vaught, who despite not being large even by contemporary standards led TCU's line for several seasons. In 1932 every starting TCU lineman won all-Southwest Conference honors.

Vaught worked as a line coach at North Carolina in the late 1930s when the Tar Heels were a national power. He served in the Navy during WWII and took the Mississippi job after the 1946 season. He would never coach anywhere else. The 1946 Rebels had finished a woeful 2-7. One year later Vaught’s first team finished 9-2, went undefeated in conference play and won the SEC for the first time in school history. Vaught brought a new attitude to Oxford. He was serious about football, a thinking coach and a winner. His first act as head coach was to order the state highway department to dig a new practice field in an eight-foot pit. He surrounded the pit with trees and campus cops and went to work. Vaught’s practices were always secret, and with good reason. His flexible strategic approach to offensive planning was, like Schmidt and Meyer at TCU, years ahead of the times. Vaught routinely surprised opponents who looked far more talented on paper.

The most famous example of Vaught’s coaching genius came in November 1969 at Tennessee against Doug Dickey’s undefeated, top-ranked Volunteers. Vaught’s underrated Rebels were 5-3, but had taken all their losses on the road and two of them by a single point each. Junior quarterback Archie Manning had amassed 1,394 yards and 6 TDs on 128 completions in 222 attempts. He had also run for 363 yards on 100 carries with 11 TDs. Despite Manning's impressive stats Tennessee’s all-American linebacker Steve Kiner brashly called Mississippi’s players “mules” in an interview several weeks prior to the season. Tennessee fans, supremely confident in their team, compounded the insult by wearing buttons reading “Archie who?” Someone even found the spare cash to pay for a small plane to fly over Mississippi’s practice field and drop leaflets reading “Archie mud”. Naturally common opinion in Mississippi was that an unknown Vol backer had paid for the stunt, but no one ever claimed credit and at least one Rebel beat writer suspected that Vaught had organized it himself in order to rile up his players.

Vaught knew Tennessee would build their defensive game plan around Manning’s scrambling outside play. He spent the entire week working on inside blocking and went into the November 15th meeting in Jackson prepared to run draw plays with running backs Bo Bowen and Randy Reed. On the Rebels’ first possession Manning led an 82 yard drive in 11 plays for a score, almost entirely on hand-offs. Just as Vaught predicted, Tennessee loaded the edges of the line. The Vols, including an injured Kiner watching from the sideline, reeled as Ole’ Miss ran over them inside. Six Tennessee starters left the game with injuries as a surging Mississippi team romped to a 38-0 win that could easily have been even more lopsided. Locals watched aghast and sheepishly removed their buttons as UT’s national championships hopes went up in flames.

Vaught led Mississippi to 18 bowl games, including 14 straight from 1957 to 1970. He won six Sugar Bowls, was SEC coach of the year six times, and earned three national titles with various polls other than the AP in 1959, 1960 and 1962. Although the great Archie Manning played for Vaught in the late 1960s his best seasons came in the late 1950s and early 60s. All four of his ten win seasons occurred between 1955 and 1962. Only once in that stretch did he win less than nine games. Four of his six Sugar Bowl championships came in those eight seasons. And as good as those fat years were for Vaught, they would have been even better were it not for Paul Dietzel and his LSU Tigers.

Dietzel grew up in Fremont, Ohio. He played one year of college ball at Duke before joining the U.S. Air Force for WWII. He completed his college career after the war as an all-American center at Miami, Ohio before taking assistant coaching jobs at Cincinnati, Kentucky and Army. Dietzel learned from the best in his profession, working for Paul Bryant in Lexington and Earl Blaik at West Point. When a struggling LSU hired Dietzel to his first head coaching job in 1955 the school did not gain a proven commodity, but they knew their man possessed pedigree. Even still, Dietzel’s career in Baton Rouge started slowly.

The Tigers were not the most talented southern outfit and had not fielded truly great teams in several decades. LSU posted losing seasons in 1955 and 1956, before improving to a still underwhelming 5-5 in 1957. Then Dietzel hit upon an idea that changed his fortunes. In 1953 substitution rules had been enacted which effectively restored football to a one platoon game. Coaches attempted to find the best ways around the rules, sharing talent across various units to reduce the drop off between their starters and second string. But no one came up with a more effective method than Dietzel engineered in 1958.

During pre-season drills Dietzel divided his unfancied Tigers into three units. He selected his best eleven men and designated them the first team for both offense and defense. His second eleven he designated the second string offense. For his second string defense Dietzel created a unit from mostly underclassmen and walk-ons which he named “the Chinese bandits”. Despite largely lacking talent and only playing in relief situations to keep the starters fresh, the bandits developed a feisty character, a true espirit de corps and immense popularity. Members of the unit temporarily promoted to the second string in place of injured players asked Dietzel to move them back to the bandits as soon as possible. They performed admirably, blocking punts on several occasions to give the offense prime field position. Their spirit inspired better play out of LSU’s stars, and with a first team back field featuring future Heisman Trophy winner Billy Cannon that improvement was costly to opponents.

Paul Dietzel and Billy Cannon

Cannon grew up in Baton Rouge and sold peanuts at Tiger stadium as a boy. The all-American prep star had no end of scholarship offers but was only ever going to LSU. The stud lived up to his billing, gaining 512 yards in eight games as a sophomore in 1957, his first varsity season. In 1958 Cannon’s team best 686 yard on 115 carries (5.9 ypc) led LSU to an undefeated 11-0 season crowned with a 7-0 win over Clemson in the Sugar Bowl and an AP national championship. Dietzel came out of nowhere to lead the Tigers to the Promised Land, picking up Football Coaches Association coach of the year honors on the way.

LSU’s success set Cannon up for a Heisman run as a senior. Dietzel’s Tigers went 9-2 in 1959 and after a disappointing 5-4-1 campaign the following year went 10-1 in 1961 with an Orange Bowl win. Dietzel compiled a 46-24-3 record in seven seasons with three bowl appearances, a national title and a Heisman winner for his resume. Of those 24 losses only seven occurred after his first three years. For four seasons Dietzel threatened to establish LSU as a national power, but after his successful 1961 campaign accepted an offer to take over as the head coach at West Point.

Despite his early promise Dietzel never again attained the prominence he enjoyed in Baton Rouge. He was the unfortunate victim of changing winds in college football. In 1961 the service academies were still elite programs and coveted coaching jobs. Army’s Pete Dawkins had claimed the 1958 Heisman Trophy. Navy had two Heisman winners in 1960 and 1963 -Joe Bellino and Roger Staubach. But neither program has earned a Heisman Trophy or so much as flirted with the top of the polls since. Top recruits simply did not want to join the services after the early 1960s. Starved of the best talent Dietzel went a disappointing 21-18-1 in four seasons at West Point. He decided to cut his losses and moved on to a long career at South Carolina, where he compiled a respectable record of 155-119-8 but made only one bowl appearance and never sniffed a national title chase. In retrospect, leaving Baton Rouge was a mistake for Deitzel. As a consequence of the relative obscurity his successive coaching career suffered, one of the better four year spells in SEC coaching history is now largely forgotten. Probably only LSU and South Carolina fans would mention Dietzel in conversations about great SEC coaches. But for four brief and fierce seasons, Paul Dietzel joined Johnny Vaught in ruling southern football.

In the seven seasons that Dietzel and Vaught coached against one another their teams actually met eight times. Back in those days it was not uncommon for the Sugar Bowl to select two SEC teams if they were the best available, so LSU and Ole’ Miss squared off twice in 1959. Vaught edged the series 4-3-1. Between 1958 and 1961 the two coaches won three of four SEC championships. After Dietzel left for Army Vaught won the next two SEC titles outright without too much difficulty. Vaught won the first three head-to-head meetings, but from 1958 Dietzel went 3-1-1 against Ole’ Miss with the one loss coming in the Sugar Bowl.

On October 31st 1959 the undefeated, third ranked Rebels rolled into a hostile Halloween Baton Rouge environment for a night game in Tiger stadium. Waiting for them were Dietzel’s undefeated, top-ranked LSU. The Tigers has not lost since a home date against Mississippi State on November 16th 1957. The week before that game they had dropped a close 12-14 decision in Oxford. Paul Dietzel, Billy Cannon, the Chinese Bandits and every other Tiger did not feel like returning to the habit of losing to Ole’ Miss.

Despite the inhospitable roars of “Go to Hell Ole’ Miss” from 67,000 rabid home fans, a defensive slug-fest developed with the Rebels finding a 3-0 lead before the break. Early in the third quarter that lead disappeared when Cannon padded his Heisman resume with an interception on defense. Later, with ten minutes remaining in the fourth, the game turned on exactly the kind of play that often decide defensive stand-offs. A Rebel punt to the LSU 11 was fielded by who else but Billy Cannon. The all-American back virtually assured himself of a Heisman trophy as he clutched the ball tightly to his chest and deftly held his balance after a near-stumble. A hit a few yards upfield seemed for a split second to have floored him, but Cannon righted himself again, stepped on the gas and ground his way through a crowd of pursuing Rebels before bursting into daylight at the LSU 40-yard line. He tore away to the end zone at top speed to give LSU a 7-3 lead it would eventually hold with a last-minute goalline stand.

Unfortunately, the Tigers went on to lose in Knoxville the following week. That cost Dietzel a second national title as undefeated Syracuse took the AP crown behind the running of future Heisman winner Ernie Davis. The Orangemen went on to beat Texas in the Cotton Bowl while Sugar Bowl selectors took the opportunity to match the nation’s number two and three teams in a Dietzel-Vaught rematch. In the end, it seemed LSU’s magic had dried up. The Rebels won a disappointing affair easily, 21-0.

LSU-Mississippi would not come up in any conversation about great SEC rivalries, and with good reason. After Dietzel left for West Point in 1962 the two programs never again reached national prominence at the same time. The history of the series, which LSU leads 55-38-4, predominantly constitutes long winning streaks by one school or the other. Rarely have the two programs exchanged blows in alternating years for sustained periods. Only for four short seasons did the two schools share the perch a top the SEC. But for those seasons, if for those only, the LSU-Ole’ Miss rivalry attained epic proportions that deserves to be remembered with the conference’s greatest.

Because we can...

The other day, a friend directed my attention to an interesting tidbit of football trivia.

No doubt every reader will be familiar with John F. Kennedy's famous speech about putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade. That speech was given at Rice University, in the football stadium, on September 12th 1962. The theme of the speech was the enterprising spirit of man and the quest for knowledge as an end in itself. Inspiring stuff. Below is a video of the best known part of the speech.



The part that gets cuts from the speech highlights is the sentence immediately preceding this passage (which is the reason everyone is cheering at the beginning of the clip). Immediately before the best known soundbite, the President said this:

"'Why,' some say, 'the moon? Why choose this as our goal?' And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, thirty-five years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?' (Crowd cheers) We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

What a fantastic analogy for the indomitable spirit of man. Rice's all time record against Texas is 21-69-1. (As it happens the one tie occurred a month after this speech in the same venue. Clearly the President motivated the Owls to get an unlikely half-win). Kudos to all schools out there who choose to play games not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

Whatever happened to the indomitable spirit of man?

(The full speech can be see here, Rice reference is at 8 minutes. Should you be interested).

SEC coaching rivalries: Robert Neyland vs. Frank Thomas, 1931-1946

General Robert Neyland is unquestionably the Granddaddy of the SEC coaching fraternity. His Volunteers invariably reflected his bullish, bruising and determined character. Even for one-platoon football in the pre-modern era the General’s play book was basic. He insisted on simplicity, running no more than twenty offensive plays to ensure clear headed quarterbacking. In practice Neyland gave more time than any of his peers to the science and timing of blocking. As a result his Tennessee teams racked up 112 shutouts over his thirty-year career. His 1939 Tennessee Vols will forever remain the last major college team to complete a season unscored upon. Neyland never coached anywhere but Knoxville. His legend is therefore inextricably tied to the University of Tennessee's self-image.

Neyland played his football at West Point alongside future notables including Dwight D. Eisenhower. The imposing lineman also won the national collegiate title for heavyweight boxing. This toughness proved invaluable when Neyland was recalled to active duty for WWII at the age of fifty. After almost two decades of college coaching he switched seamlessly back into military life. As a Brigadier-General working in logistics in the South Asia theatre his service earned him an O.B.E – making him the only college football coach decorated by the King of England to my knowledge.

When Tennessee hired Neyland in 1926 his mandate was simple: Beat Vanderbilt. By the time he retired in 1952 he had built a juggernaut so mighty that Vanderbilt would never again even dream of catching their erstwhile rival on the grid iron. Neyland went 173-31-12 in 21 seasons with Southern Conference championships in 1927 and 1932. He claimed a share of his first SEC title in 1939 and won outright titles in 1940 and 1946, either side of his wartime hiatus. He shared his final SEC title with Bobby Dodd’s Georgia Tech in 1951. Five times his teams won at least ten games, including three straight seasons from 1938-40.

The General led Tennessee to five bowls, winning two. Neyland won an AP national championship in 1951 to go along with two earlier titles from other sources. He could easily have won more. In 1950 the Vols beat Texas in the Cotton Bowl while AP champion Oklahoma lost the Sugar Bowl to Paul Bryant’s Kentucky Wildcats.

Despite Neyland finishing his career with an uncharacteristic 13-28 loss to Jim Tatum’s Maryland in the 1952, the General retired with the best winning percentage of any Tennessee coach. His 173 wins in 213 games still hold that record.

UT beating Oklahoma in the 1939 Orange Bowl

General Neyland was not the first southern coach to achieve national notoriety. The University of Alabama announced the arrival of southern football onto the national stage by winning the Rose Bowl under Wallace Wade on New Year's Day 1926. His successor, Frank Thomas continued the legacy. Though Wade’s Alabama career overlapped with Neyland’s tenure at Tennessee by six years, the schools did not begin playing annually until 1928 (Neyland edged Wade 2-1 over the following three seasons). When Thomas accepted the position to succeed Wade, who had fallen out with the school’s directors and departed for Duke, Neyland’s Tennessee program was justifiably the benchmark for success. Alabama President George Denny left Thomas in no doubt as to his expectations, famously telling him as he offered the job:

“Football is ninety percent talent and ten percent coaching. You will be provided with the ninety percent. I will hold you strictly accountable for the ten percent.”

Denny needn’t have worried. Thomas grew up in the chaotic hardship of industrial Chicago in the 1890s. As the son of a poor, immigrant steel worker he possessed considerable tenacity. As a prep star he fell in love with football and set himself to learn the art of coaching. He began that process as quarterback at Notre Dame under Knute Rockne. The Irish legend viewed Thomas as one the most intelligent players he ever coached. After arriving at Alabama Thomas unhesitatingly set about installing a version of Rockne’s box offense. The young coach confidently scrapped Wade’s playbook and met with immediate success. In 1931 his first team went 9-1. Naturally, the sole loss was a lop-sided 25-0 beat down in Knoxville.

Frank Thomas (third from left) and staff

Through fifteen seasons to 1946, when he retired with rising blood pressure, Thomas went 115-24-7. His winning percentage of .812 as an Alabama coach is second only to the Bear. Thomas won the first and second ever SEC championships in 1933 and 1934. Alabama claimed a national championship the latter of those years, going 10-0 and beating Stanford in the Rose Bowl. Thomas' 1945 team went 10-0 but, understandably for the times, every poll voted Army national champion instead. Bama finished that season with a convincing 34-14 Rose Bowl victory over USC. Trojan coach Jeff Cravath said Thomas could have named the score and thanked him for pulling back. Alabama fans have always believed the Pacific Coast Conference began inviting the Big-10 Champion to Pasadena because they were sick of Alabama beating the cream of the West.

Thomas went 4-2 in bowl games, including two Rose Bowls and victories in his only trips to the Cotton and Orange Bowls. By the time he retired Thomas had built upon Wallace Wade’s foundations to build a football Goliath that more than equaled General Neyland’s Tennessee. Alabama boasted a Rose Bowl record of 4-1-1 with four national championships, compared to Tennessee’s Rose Bowl record of 1-1 and one national title. Between 1933 and 1946 Bama and UT won at least a share of the SEC title a combined eight times at an even four a-piece. The two schools began a rivalry in the Neyland-Thomas years that has continued to dominate southern football. To date Alabama’s twenty-one and Tennessee’s thirteen SEC titles are the first and second most.

At the center of this dominating rivalry is the annual clash simply known as “the third Saturday in October.” In Wallace Wade’s final year the Crimson Tide went 10-0, won the Rose Bowl and claimed national title. Neyland’s Tennessee finished 9-1, losing only to Alabama, 18-6 in Tuscaloosa. The following year, Neyland returned the favor. As Thomas’ first Tide team won 9 with a loss in Knoxville, Tennessee went undefeated with only a tie at Kentucky keeping the Vols from a national title. Neyland and Thomas coached head-to-head ten times, with the General having a 3-6-1 edge. Thomas’ overall record against Tennessee was a healthier 7-6-2 (including the war years and 1935, which Neyland did not coach). Thomas did not have a losing record against any school or coach he faced more than once, except Neyland.

Games between the two schools simply meant more than any other. Seven times in the ten years Thomas and Neyland coached against one another the winner went on to claim the SEC crown. Howell Chappell, Alabama’s left Halfback from 1931-1933 recalled intercepting a pass in Knoxville in Thomas’ first win over Neyland in 1933. Chappell stepped out of bounds and into a crowd of High School boys on the sideline. The boys proceeded to kick the Bama back and, according to Chappell:

“Kicked me all the way to the endzone... They weren’t happy about us winning.”

In 1935 as defending Rose Bowl champions the Crimson Tide were the team to beat, led by the record breaking end play of future pro-football standout Don Hutson. Opposite Hutson Alabama’s “other end” attracted less attention. Paul Bryant caught far fewer balls and had less talent, but never disappointed. The week before the Tennessee game Bryant broke a leg in the first quarter against Mississippi State. He returned in the third quarter and finished the game. He went on to play the following week, refusing to come out until a 25-0 victory was all but assured. Bryant caught several passes in the game, two of which he successfully lateraled and one for a touchdown.

Tennessee always showed the same measure of fortitude. In 1932 the two schools met on a windy, rainy, inhospitable day in Birmingham. Tennessee was undefeated and had not lost once in the two year since Wallace Wade’s last game against Neyland. In treacherous conditions the game quickly descended into a kicking duel. Tennessee’s legendary halfback Beattie Feathers exchanged 23 punts with a 46 yard average for Johnny Caine’s effort of 21 punts of a 43 yard average the other way. Conditions were so bad that several times the teams elected to punt on first down. Alabama had a 3-0 lead in the fourth quarter when Feathers landed a punt in a puddle on their one yard line. Tide Tackle Jim Dildy later regretted that his team did not simply take a safety. Instead, Caine punted. He shanked the ball out at the 12.

With one last chance to win the game Tennessee lined up to run a single-wing play with a center snap to right, but the ball spilled due to miscommunication and Bama collapsed the line. As Tennessee backs tripped over one another Feather dived into the crowd and pushed the ball loose. His teammate Chief Cochise grabbed it, knocked two Tide players down and forced his way into the end zone. Such tenacity, quick thinking and unlikely events were all classic Alabama-Tennessee.

General Neyland famously said once:

“You never know about a player until he has played against Alabama.”

That continues to be the standard on Rocky top and in Tuscaloosa.

Instinctively, one might think that when great coaches compete, the success of one must necessarily mean the detriment of the other. In head to head games that is certainly true. But in the grander scheme, southern football has never worked that way. As the game grew and rivalries escalated, the stakes crept incrementally upwards. If one school had a General Neyland, the others must find their Frank Thomas. SEC football has always worked that way, with juggernaut programs continually feeding from competition with one another.
That all began in the 1930s on the Third Saturday in every October.