by Tom Mattingly | Dec 27, 2020 | Columnist, Mattingly, Stories In This Week's Focus:
By Tom Mattingly On October 27, 1928, Maj. Bob Neyland was in the midst of his first tenure as Volunteer head coach. The Vols had defeated Alabama the week before in Tuscaloosa, 15-13, led by Gene McEver’s 98-yard return of the opening kickoff. Neyland’s charges were...
by Tom Mattingly | Dec 21, 2020 | Columnist, Mattingly
By Tom Mattingly When Tennessee played at Georgia on Nov. 4, 1972, many Vol fans rode to the game on a special Southern Railways train from Atlanta, disembarking near the stadium’s east end zone. Tennessee won, 14-0, and the trip back in the late afternoon and early...
by Tom Mattingly | Dec 14, 2020 | Columnist, Mattingly
By Tom Mattingly In the late 1960s and into the 1970s, there was one collegiate game on the tube each weekend, several emanating from Knoxville. ABC had the broadcast rights, and whatever game they chose, that’s what the nation saw, with a few exceptions for so-called...
by Tom Mattingly | Dec 7, 2020 | Columnist, Mattingly
By Tom Mattingly Bowl games are fickle creatures, almost two games in one. One team might dominate for a half, and after intermission the other team comes back and makes a game out of it. The 1966 Gator Bowl, No. 22 in the bowl’s history, was such an affair. It was...
by Tom Mattingly | Nov 30, 2020 | Columnist, Mattingly
By Tom Mattingly For those of us who traveled with the Vols over the years, Friday nights on the road were open for most of us, with Saturday’s evening events being scripted nearly to the last minute. Except the game, of course. For me, one of the most interesting...
by Tom Mattingly | Nov 23, 2020 | Columnist, Mattingly
By Tom Mattingly You could probably count the number of 99-yard touchdown drives in the history· of Tennessee football on one hand, but two of them came at Florida Field, in 1971 and 1977 (long before the days it was called the “Swamp” Ben Hill Griffin Stadium” or...
