How and the two men that built the SEC

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Fives times from 1927-32, the Volunteers didn’t lose a game, but that was merely a prelude to even better times, historic times.

NEYLAND'S VOLS SHUT OUT THEIR OPPONENTS 109 TIMES IN 216 GAMES.
From 1938-40, Neyland’s men went 31-2. They finished second in the AP poll in consecutive seasons, including their unfathomable 1938 season, when they capped an 11-0 campaign by smothering Oklahoma 17-0 in the Orange Bowl to claim their first national title.

They were somehow more dominant in 1939, never allowing a single point while storming through a perfect 10-0 regular season. That comprised the bulk of a 17-game regular-season game stretch in which nobody crossed their goal line or kicked a ball through their upright.

That streak continued into 1940, a year in which the Vols beat Alabama for the third consecutive time, recorded eight shutouts, finished the regular season 10-0 and claimed their second national championship in three seasons.

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When Bear Bryant became the Alabama head coach in 1958, the Tennessee-Alabama series stood at 18-17-5 in favor of Alabama. It had never been that close. J. B. Whitworth's three (1955, 1956, 1957) Alabama teams had gone 0-3 against Tennessee, without scoring a single point against the Vols. When Bryant's first (1958) Alabama team was beaten by Tennessee, 14-7, the series record was tied for the first time in history, at 18-18-5. The Vols and Bama tied the next season (1959), 7-7. When Tennessee won 20-7 in 1960, the record went to 18-19-6, in favor of the Vols.

Alabama under Bryant won the next four, so that by the end of the 1964 season, Alabama had stretched out to a slim 22-19-6 series lead. Does anyone remember the Bear Bryant forearm knocking down the locker room door after the 7-7 tie against Tennessee in 1965? Yes, a green sophomore QB named Stabler had lost a chance at a winning score in the waning minutes. Could Bryant have had the series record on his mind? He had just managed to get ahead of Tennessee in the record books, and he let this win get away. That '65 team was capable, too. They eventually won the national championship.

When Alabama football declined at the end of the sixties ('67-'70), Tennessee ran off a streak of four straight wins, bringing the overall series record to a tie in 1970 -- 23-23-7.

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