By Tom Mattingly
When Tennessee came on the field for the 2024 game at Oklahoma wearing white jerseys and white pants, a UT spokesperson told ABC the combination “is considered UT’s traditional road garb.”
Sometimes, in the wrong hands, the concept of “tradition” takes a beating.
This was one of those times.
History tells us that Tennessee rarely wore white jerseys on the road before 1971, when the SEC instituted a “Gentleman’s Agreement” that the home team would have the choice of jersey color. The visiting team could wear their school color jerseys only if the home team chose its white shirts, as did LSU and, on occasion, Vanderbilt.
For the record, Tennessee head coach Bill Battle voted against this agreement, thereby defending the honor and integrity of the orange jersey.
Before that time, Tennessee wore the white jerseys in the 1953 Cotton Bowl (Texas 16, Tennessee 0), the 1969 Cotton Bowl (Texas 36, Tennessee 13), and the 1963 Alabama game (Alabama 35, Tennessee 0), all losses. The 1971 Florida game (Tennessee 20, Florida 13) started the white jersey trend on a yearly basis. As the years have passed, however, Vol fans began to accept the white shirts on the road.
The road uniforms have been a mix of style over the years, seemingly changing with the arrival of each new head coach. From 1971 through 1973, the Vols wore the white jerseys with the orange collar and white pants. That lasted for three years, eight games, the Vols winning five and losing three.
The powers-that-be considered this uniform combination to be important enough historically that the Vols brought it back in 2004 for the season opener against UNLV. That was an intriguing reading of history.
From 1974 to 1976, the Vols wore a pure vanilla combination of white jerseys and white pants that was functional, but wasn’t anything to write home about.
John Majors chose the white shirts and orange pants as the road uniform starting with the 1977 Alabama game. The Vols wore white pants on the road only occasionally during that time, with the 1979 Alabama and Ole Miss games, the 1981 Georgia game, and the 1982 Vanderbilt game coming to mind quickly.
Phillip Fulmer brought out the white pants for the 1992 Georgia game when he was interim head coach, but the orange pants returned at the LSU game later that season, and the Vols were in orange pants down the season’s stretch run.
Fulmer made the white shirts and white pants, some with stripes, some without, some with a “T” emblazoned on the front, the road uniform of choice during his tenure. The Vols did pull out the orange pants at home in the 1999 contest against Memphis on Homecoming Day.
More recent years have seen the Vols wearing the white pants on the road most of the time, with the orange ones showing up every now and then, along with a variety of “alternative uniforms.”
In these cases, the facts do get in the way of an otherwise good story. Over the years, the white road uniforms have been anything but uniform, at least in the context of history.
Speaking of which, Tennessee and Alabama will each wear their “home uniforms” at Neyland Stadium this season, the Vols in orange shirts and Alabama in crimson. In 2027, the same uniform combinations will be on display at Bryant-Denny Stadium.
That news brought back memories of the 2009 Tennessee-Alabama game at Bryant-Denny. That was the game Lane Kiffin floated the idea of wearing orange jerseys or maybe warming up in orange shirts, before returning for the kickoff in white shirts.
Either Nick Saban or Mal Moore, perhaps both, put the kibosh on that idea, saying, in part, “Alabama wears crimson jerseys at home and white ones on the road.” That settled the issue. The tone of that announcement reflected their official disdain of even having to consider the question.
Nothing in the announcement this August gave any indication how Tennessee and Alabama actually found enough common ground to come to an agreement on such a weighty matter. The devil is likely in the details that went unreported.
The last time Tennessee and Alabama squared off in their school color jerseys was the 1970 contest at Neyland Stadium. Battle was Tennessee’s head coach, while Bear Bryant patrolled the East side of Shields-Watkins Field for the Tide.
The Vols won 24-0 that day, intercepting eight Tide passes. They would not knock off the Tide again until 1982, the first of four consecutive wins between 1982 and 1985. Majors was on the Tennessee sideline, while Bryant coached his final game in Knoxville in 1982, replaced by Ray Perkins.
Where does all of this lead us? Here’s my perspective as we head to the “Third Saturday in October” in 2026.
“When the Vols and Tide squared off with Alabama in crimson and white uniforms on one side of the field and Tennessee in orange and white on the other,” I wrote in the “Tennessee Vault,” “there was never a prettier sight. It was football played the way everyone on both sides in the rivalry knew it was meant to be. The venue didn’t matter.”
You can see for yourself if those sentiments are true at Neyland Stadium this season or a year down the road at Bryant-Denny.
