A postseason quiz: Which Tennessee football coaches never lost a bowl? | Mike Strange
Would it surprise you to learn that Butch Jones won more bowl games at Tennessee than Robert Neyland did?
It surprised me, and I’ve spent a fair amount of time over the past four decades studying Vol football lore.
The Orange Bowl date with Clemson at the end of the month further enriches a busy history. This will be either Tennessee’s 30th bowl victory or its 26th loss.
Phillip Fulmer’s eight bowl wins are tops for a UT coach. He was 8-7. John Majors went 7-4. Doug Dickey went 2-3 and handed off the program in great shape to Bill Battle, who went 4-1.
Bowden Wyatt and John Barnhill were both 1-1. Jeremy Pruitt won his only bowl. Lane Kiffin and Derek Dooley lost their only try. Josh Heupel is 0-1.
Jones, however, was a champion of bowl season, going 3-0, all against Big Ten opponents.
Neyland, the program’s founding father, was just 2-5.
When Neyland’s 1938 team played Tennessee’s first bowl game, there were only five bowls: Rose, Orange, Cotton, Sugar and Sun. When his final team played in 1952, there were still just seven.
In other words, there were no Birmingham or Music City bowls to welcome the also-rans.
Now, there are 41 bowls. Any well-resourced program almost has to work to avoid one.
Neyland’s 1938 and 1950 teams won bowls. His final game was a 16-0 loss to Texas in the Cotton Bowl after the 1952 season. He was too ill to coach but sat on the bench while assistant Harvey Robinson called the shots.
Here are a few bowl odds and ends that I hope you’ll find interesting.
War looms: Neyland was already away in World War II when Clyde “Ig” Fuson scored the winning touchdown in a 14-7 Sugar Bowl victory over Tulsa on Jan. 1, 1943. It was the last game for Fuson and teammates Rudy Klarer and Bill Nowling.
There was no team in 1943 due to the war. Fuson and Nowling (along with 1940 letterman Willis Tucker) were killed in action in 1944 and Klarer in early 1945.
No passing zone: Heisman Trophy runners-up Hank Lauricella and Majors had interesting bowl stats that reflect the single-wing era in which they played.
Lauricella, the Heisman runner-up in 1951, was 1-of-5 passing with three interceptions, in a 28-13 loss to Maryland in the Sugar Bowl.
In 1956, Heisman runner-up Majors was 1-of-7 passing with two interceptions in a 13-7 Sugar Bowl loss to Baylor that spoiled a perfect season. The Vols lost the turnover battle 5-0.
Heisman stoppers: Tennessee beat two reigning Heisman winners in bowls. John David Crow, the 1957 winner, managed 46 rushing yards in a 3-0 loss to the Vols in the Gator Bowl. Eddie George, the 1995 winner, got 101 yards in the Citrus Bowl but was stopped on a crucial fourth-and-inches play in the first half and fumbled in the fourth quarter of a 20-14 Tennessee victory.
Two eventual Heisman winners as seniors had better luck. Steve Owens (1969) of Oklahoma got an Orange Bowl win over UT as a sophomore. Eric Crouch (2001) of Nebraska beat UT in the Fiesta Bowl as a sophomore.
No rushing zone: It’s no mystery why the Vols struggled against ACC opponents in bowls during the 2000s. Check these net rushing yard totals – 45 yards, 2002 Maryland (Peach); 38 yards, 2003 Clemson (Peach); 5 yards, 2009 Virginia Tech (Chick-fil-A); 27 yards 2010 North Carolina (Music City).
And, oh, yeah, a combined 22 sacks allowed.
Mike Strange is a former writer for the News Sentinel. He currently writes a weekly sports column for Shopper News.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Which Tennessee football coaches never lost a bowl? Mike Strange column
