By Tom Mattingly
In the 1966 season, Tennessee won eight games for a second straight year under head coach Doug Dickey in a season marked by offensive fireworks and defensive prowess. The Vols scored 240 points in 11 games and gave up 99.
Quarterback Dewey Warren, known as the “Swamp Rat,” threw for 1,716 yards, almost triple his previous season high of 588, set a year earlier in a part-time role.
Dickey was in his third year at the helm of the Vol program. The Vols were coming off an 8-1-2 mark a year earlier. A 37-34 win over Rose Bowl-bound UCLA and a 27-6 win over Tulsa in the Bluebonnet Bowl gave hope that 1966 would be another banner year for the Vols.
The Vols came T-H-I-S close to a sensational season, losing tightly contested games to Georgia Tech (6-3) at Grant Field, Alabama (11-10) in Knoxville, and Ole Miss (14-7) on Homecoming Day in Knoxville. The Vols won against Auburn at Legion Field (28-0), at home against Rice (23-3), against Chattanooga (28-10), and against South Carolina (28-12), in Memphis against Army (38-7), at home against Kentucky (28-19), and at Vanderbilt (28-0). The Georgia Tech, Kentucky, and Syracuse games were on ABC Television, the most TV games in a single season in Vol history up to that time.
Neyland Stadium had a seating capacity of 57,122, with games played on a grass surface with orange and white checkerboard end zones adding to the ambience. A crowd of 56,463 braved afternoon rainstorms to see the game.
The season concluded with an 18-12 triumph over Syracuse in the Gator Bowl. Tennessee led 18-0 at the half, but held on for the narrow win as Syracuse, led by future NFL running backs Larry Csonka and Floyd Little, made it too close for comfort late in the game. The game was highlighted by a titanic collision between Paul Naumoff and Csonka near the Vol goal inside the last few minutes.
“The bowl victory over Syracuse was a great win for us against a very talented team,” said head coach Doug Dickey. “Again, our offense and defense worked very well together, and that was another step in the direction we needed to be going with the program. The only thing left was to win the conference championship.”
That happened in 1967 and again in 1969.
Elizabethton’s Johnny Mills caught 48 passes for 725 yards, both school records. Mills caught 11 passes in the season opener against Auburn and set a school record with 225 yards against Kentucky, a mark that stood until the 2001 LSU game.
Punter Ron Widby, a Knoxville native who would lead the Vols to the SEC basketball title that winter, was the NCAA punting king with a 43.8-yard average.
The Vol program was again rocked by tragedy just before spring practice. Linebacker Tom Fisher, a starter at defensive end in 1965, and tackle John Crumbacher were killed in a car-truck accident near Benton, Tenn. Guard Gerald Woods survived the accident, but never played again.
The previous October, the Vol program had been hit by similar circumstances. Three assistant coaches—Bill Majors, Bob Jones, and Charlie Rash—had been killed at a West Knoxville railroad grade crossing the Monday after a 7-7 tie against Alabama on Legion Field. Vol captain Hal Wantland echoed the sentiments of much of the Vol fan base when he said, “Alabama tied us.”
Naumoff, a defensive end in 1965, turned linebacker in 1966. Austin Denney, Widby, and Bob Johnson were each All-American selections, the most first-team selections since 1939. Mills joined Naumoff, Denney, and Johnson as All-SEC selections. Johnson was named Academic All-SEC.
The 1966 season is fodder for the armchair quarterbacks that populate the Vol fan base. One U.T. professor spoke for many fans when he called the loss to Alabama “the most disappointing moment in my life.” That quote ended up in Sports Illustrated.
Dickey was philosophical about it.
“There’s not much you can say, but it told us it’s 7-7 one year and 11-10 the next and we’re in the hunt with Alabama for sure. I was awfully disappointed for Gary Wright and the whole team. We did everything we could do on that given day. I felt we were in the hunt for the championship when we could play Alabama to a standstill two years in a row.”
Dickey was right about where the Vol program was headed. Under his leadership, the Vols won 24-13 in 1967 at Legion Field, 10-9 at Neyland Stadium in 1968, and 41-14 in 1969, back in Birmingham.
The 1966 team finished 8-3-0. Team captains were Naumoff and Denney.
Sometimes the passage of time, 60 years in this case, catches the observer by surprise, but Vol fans can look back at these years in the mid-to-late 1960s and find them to be really special and historically memorable.
