By Tom Mattingly Before the 1972 season, night games were not part of the Tennessee football experience. There were no lights at Shields-Watkins Field/Neyland Stadium, and the Vols played sparingly under the lights on the road or in bowl games. There were night games at Florida and against Arkansas in the Liberty Bowl in […]
By Tom Mattingly There are times the game-by-game scores in the Tennessee Football Media Guide, pp. 280- 296 in the 1919 version, are just a mind-numbing array of numbers, stretching from that first game in 1891, Sewanee 24, Tennessee 0, through the more recent years. No one has had the patience to count how many […]
By Tom Mattingly A great many interesting things go on in the visiting team’s locker room area after the game is over. Tennessee fans see visiting teams trot onto the field to a scattered chorus of boos, but that’s just part of the story. There’s drama underneath the south end zone few people get to […]
By Tom Mattingly When push comes to shove for quarterbacks battling for playing time, as is the case this spring and more than likely going into the fall, there are a number of cliches that seem applicable. “The No. 2 quarterback is always the most popular guy in town.” “If you have two quarterbacks, you […]
By Tom Mattingly What is the greatest run in Tennessee football history? Opinions vary. If Hank Lauricella’ s 75-yard run in the first quarter of the 1951 Cotton Bowl game against Texas is No. 1, Johnny Butler’s run against Alabama in 1939 is 1a, and Jay Graham’s touchdown runs against Alabama in 1995 and 1996 […]
By Tom Mattingly Record-setting performances happen in unexpected places, at unexpected times. It happened in a televised game in the days there were precious few games on the tube. On Nov. 9, in the ninth game of the 1966 season, Tennessee was unranked in AP’s Top 10. The Vols and Kentucky were squaring off at […]
By Tom Mattingly “It’s not how many years a man has lived. It’s how many people are glad that he did.” That’s the Bob Campbell storyline when you attempted to sum up a life that spanned 72 years and 19 days, one that ended on Nov. 18, 2017. It was a daunting task, but was […]
By Tom Mattingly Three events in the mid-1960s helped define the era in Knoxville basketball history and the immediate future of the University of Tennessee basketball program. The protagonists in one specific drama were Bill Justus and Jimmy England, who were playing for Bob Fry at Fulton High School and Carroll Smith at Holston High […]
By Tom Mattingly There are times in a lifetime of watching and commenting about sports and assessing its impact on otherwise sane and sensible people that the time comes to sit down and rationally consider what the fuss is all about. One dominant recollection from across the years was the team’s Friday afternoon walk-through […]
By Tom Mattingly What March 6, 1967, gave to the Tennessee basketball program, March 6, 1978, took away. Both days” belong” to Ray Mears. On March 6, 1967, Mears was in his fifth season at Tennessee. The Vols won the SEC basketball title, first in 24 years, at Starkville, Miss., Tennessee 78, Mississippi State 76, […]
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