120 Years of Volunteer Football

#1
VFL-82-JP

VFL-82-JP

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#1
I got into one of those history/nostalgia grooves this morning. For me, that means geeking out with the history books and an excel spreadsheet, haha!

Thought I'd share a few graphs that came from wading around in stats, in case a few folks might be interested.

Here's the first result I came up with. Coaches, listed by length of tenure (# seasons as head coach). I included the win % for each coach along the bottom, under their names. The # at the top of each column is how many seasons they coached.

Vols%20Coaching%20Tenures.png


Some folks are going to go nuts over Butch's win % at Tennessee to date being below 60%. Fair enough, though if you give him a mulligan for the first two seasons, recovering from the Dark Ages, his 3rd and 4th seasons are a very respectable 69%, above about half the other long-tenure coaches. We'll see if he can keep his win % nudging further and further in the right direction.

I thought it was cool that just four of our coaches account for just about half of all our football over the decades.
 
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#2
#2
The other three charts fit together, as a series: # games played each season ... # wins per season ... and winning % per season.

Vols%20-%20120%20seasons.png


Sorry if it's tough to read, I don't know how to tell VN website that I want to enlarge the images to use the entire page width, and match the way they look on my photobucket page.

Cheers, I hope these little historic-statistical snap shots help you get through a day or two of the long off-season.

Go Vols!
 
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#4
#4
VFL-82-JP said:
I got into one of those history/nostalgia grooves this morning. For me, that means geeking out with the history books and an excel spreadsheet, haha!

Thought I'd share a few graphs that came from wading around in stats, in case a few folks might be interested.

Here's the first result I came up with. Coaches, listed by length of tenure (# seasons as head coach). I included the win % for each coach along the bottom, under their names. The # at the top of each column is how many seasons they coached.

Vols%20Coaching%20Tenures.png


Some folks are going to go nuts over Butch's win % at Tennessee to date being below 60%. Fair enough, though if you give him a mulligan for the first two seasons, recovering from the Dark Ages, his 3rd and 4th seasons are a very respectable 69%, above about half the other long-tenure coaches. We'll see if he can keep his win % nudging further and further in the right direction.

I thought it was cool that just four of our coaches account for just about half of all our football over the decades.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure that this is a fair comparison because other coaches could've possibly had to go through a possible rebuild or crap first couple of seasons as well.

Edit: Actually never mind, you included it in the chart and I missed it, you were just saying in the copy what his win % would look like without the first two seasons.
 
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#5
#5
Yeah, Butch definitely took over after the single-worst period in Vols history, going by the length of time the program was down at the 50% (or worse) win rate.

Those seven years we spent with win rates near or below 50%, from '08 to '14 (including Butch's first two years) are our Dark Ages. Those years ran: 42%, 54%, 46%, 42%, 42%, 42%, & 54%, before we finally got back above 60% in 2015.

The next closest bad stretch would be the six-year block including Bill Battle's last two years and Johnny Majors' first four (58%, 55%, 36%, 50%, 58%, 46%). Some people forget that Johnny Majors had such a rough start, going 5-6 in his fourth year.

But what Johnny inherited wasn't that bad, at least not in the record books, because the five years before he took charge went like this: 83%, 67%, 67%, 58%, 55%. Battle's best years were those where he still had Dickey's roster, for sure, but he didn't totally go submarine the way Kiffin and Dooley did to us.
 
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#6
#6
VFL-82-JP said:
The other three charts fit together, as a series: # games played each season ... # wins per season ... and winning % per season.

Vols%20-%20120%20seasons.png


Sorry if it's tough to read, I don't know how to tell VN website that I want to enlarge the images to use the entire page width, and match the way they look on my photobucket page.

Cheers, I hope these little historic-statistical snap shots help you get through a day or two of the long off-season.

Go Vols!
Click to expand...

The Butch up slope more closely resembles (albeit slower) the Neyland and Dickey accomplishments than any others - and it's probably better than Majors, but not quite enough data to call it. Majors would hardly have been considered a success by today's crowd, and the only other long-term recent coaches (Fulmer and especially Battle) started out well by inheriting good teams but faded in the stretch.
 
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#7
#7
AM64 said:
The Butch up slope more closely resembles (albeit slower) the Neyland and Dickey accomplishments than any others - and it's probably better than Majors, but not quite enough data to call it. Majors would hardly have been considered a success by today's crowd, and the only other long-term recent coaches (Fulmer and especially Battle) started out well by inheriting good teams but faded in the stretch.
Click to expand...

Totally agree, on each of your points.
 
#8
#8
Oh, here's a neat little bit of trivia I found while wading through the history books, too.

Can you, without looking it up, name the year Tennessee won a national title but not the SEC title? And who did win the SEC that year?

It's kinda interesting, and the SEC situation directly played into the national title debate.

I'll post the answer in an hour or two, give folks time to prove their Vols cred first.

Go Vols!
 
#9
#9
Step aside! Z.G. is in town.
 

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#10
#10
AM64 said:
The Butch up slope more closely resembles (albeit slower) the Neyland and Dickey accomplishments than any others - and it's probably better than Majors, but not quite enough data to call it. Majors would hardly have been considered a success by today's crowd, and the only other long-term recent coaches (Fulmer and especially Battle) started out well by inheriting good teams but faded in the stretch.
Click to expand...

Great points ... agree. Question is, which keeps VN humming...are we at an inflection point upwards after two modestly successful years...or is middle of the road who we are?
 
#11
#11
In 1950, the Neyland-led Volunteers posted an 11-1 record, including a Cotton Bowl win over #3 Texas. Our only loss was a 7-0 heartbreaker upset at the hands of lowly Mississippi State in their house in September.

The Vols, led by future Heisman-runner-up Hank Lauricella on offense, and big old Doug Atkins on defense, were proclaimed the national champions by 18 different services and selection committees (Oklahoma was named by 11 others, unfortunately including the AP and UPI, which is why some media including ESPN give the '50 champ nod to the Sooners instead).

And yet, Tennessee did not win the SEC crown that year. Why not?

Well, because Kentucky.

The Wildcats lost to Tennessee in Knoxville in late November. Head to head would give the advantage to the Vols. However...Kentucky played 6 SEC games that year, while the Volunteers played only 5. They went 5-1, we went 4-1. Kentucky got the SEC championship.

Now here's the cool part: a little more than a month after Tennessee beat Kentucky, Kentucky beat AP #1 Oklahoma, 13-7, in the Sugar Bowl. That, combined with Tennessee taking down #3 Texas on the same day, convinced many throughout the nation that, wire services or no, the Volunteers were truly the best team in the country in 1950.

This is the only time in Tennessee's history that we won a national title without also getting the SEC crown.

Go Vols!
 
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#12
#12
VFL-82-JP said:
I got into one of those history/nostalgia grooves this morning. For me, that means geeking out with the history books and an excel spreadsheet, haha!

Thought I'd share a few graphs that came from wading around in stats, in case a few folks might be interested.

Here's the first result I came up with. Coaches, listed by length of tenure (# seasons as head coach). I included the win % for each coach along the bottom, under their names. The # at the top of each column is how many seasons they coached.

Vols%20Coaching%20Tenures.png


Some folks are going to go nuts over Butch's win % at Tennessee to date being below 60%. Fair enough, though if you give him a mulligan for the first two seasons, recovering from the Dark Ages, his 3rd and 4th seasons are a very respectable 69%, above about half the other long-tenure coaches. We'll see if he can keep his win % nudging further and further in the right direction.

I thought it was cool that just four of our coaches account for just about half of all our football over the decades.
Click to expand...

There is hope for Butch...Majors had to rebuild the roster and he was only 21-23 through his first 4 years and didn't beat any team that ended up ranked (Butch has beaten 3)...so Butch could end up with a winning percentage up there (or above ) Johnny's...
 
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#13
#13
VFL-82-JP said:
In 1950, the Neyland-led Volunteers posted an 11-1 record, including a Cotton Bowl win over #3 Texas. Our only loss was a 7-0 heartbreaker upset at the hands of lowly Mississippi State in their house in late September.

The Vols, led by future Heisman-runner-up Hank Lauricella on offense, and big old Doug Atkins on defense, were proclaimed the national champions by 18 different services and selection committees (Oklahoma was named by 11 others, unfortunately including the AP and UPI, which is why some media including ESPN give the '50 champ nod to the Sooners instead).

And yet, Tennessee did not win the SEC crown that year. Why not?

Well, because Kentucky.

The Wildcats lost to Tennessee in Knoxville in late November. Head to head would give the advantage to the Vols. However...Kentucky played 6 SEC games that year, while the Volunteers played only 5. They went 5-1, we went 4-1. Kentucky got the SEC championship.

Now here's the cool part: a little more than a month after Tennessee beat Kentucky, Kentucky beat AP #1 Oklahoma, 13-7, in the Sugar Bowl. That, combined with Tennessee taking down #3 Texas on the same day, convinced many throughout the nation that, wire services or no, the Volunteers were truly the best team in the country in 1950.

This is the only time in Tennessee's history that we won a national title without also getting the SEC crown.

Go Vols!
Click to expand...

The 1951 Tennessee license plates were orange with white numbers and outline in honor of UT football. Back in those days the plate was shaped like the state rather than the traditional rectangle.
 
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#15
#15
VFL-82-JP said:
In 1950, the Neyland-led Volunteers posted an 11-1 record, including a Cotton Bowl win over #3 Texas. Our only loss was a 7-0 heartbreaker upset at the hands of lowly Mississippi State in their house in September.

The Vols, led by future Heisman-runner-up Hank Lauricella on offense, and big old Doug Atkins on defense, were proclaimed the national champions by 18 different services and selection committees (Oklahoma was named by 11 others, unfortunately including the AP and UPI, which is why some media including ESPN give the '50 champ nod to the Sooners instead).

And yet, Tennessee did not win the SEC crown that year. Why not?

Well, because Kentucky.

The Wildcats lost to Tennessee in Knoxville in late November. Head to head would give the advantage to the Vols. However...Kentucky played 6 SEC games that year, while the Volunteers played only 5. They went 5-1, we went 4-1. Kentucky got the SEC championship.

Now here's the cool part: a little more than a month after Tennessee beat Kentucky, Kentucky beat AP #1 Oklahoma, 13-7, in the Sugar Bowl. That, combined with Tennessee taking down #3 Texas on the same day, convinced many throughout the nation that, wire services or no, the Volunteers were truly the best team in the country in 1950.

This is the only time in Tennessee's history that we won a national title without also getting the SEC crown.

Go Vols!
Click to expand...

But,but,,,,,,We should never lose to Kentucky!!! I'm joking,,couldn't help it. I know they were really good back then.
Thanks for that info JP,good stuff.
 
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#16
#16
AM64 said:
The 1951 Tennessee license plates were orange with white numbers and outline in honor of UT football. Back in those days the plate was shaped like the state rather than the traditional rectangle.
Click to expand...

My dad had a couple of Tennessee-shaped plates hanging on his garage wall back in the day. His were green and white, I think, but I also vaguely remember seeing the orange and white version somewhere. Probably at a Cracker Barrel, heh, you know how they hang memorabilia everywhere. :good!:
 
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#17
#17
VolinMC said:
But,but,,,,,,We should never lose to Kentucky!!! I'm joking,,couldn't help it. I know they were really good back then.
Thanks for that info JP,good stuff.
Click to expand...

Haha, yeah, MC, they had this young, 37-year-old hotshot coach named Paul Bryant, at the time. Rumor had it he was pretty good.
 
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#21
#21
VFL-82-JP said:
Yeah, Butch definitely took over after the single-worst period in Vols history, going by the length of time the program was down at the 50% (or worse) win rate.
Click to expand...

Yep, and, Butch had another slight disadvantage of positioning to a new culture / not a born-Tennessee guy and not a played-at-Tennessee guy (Coach Majors + Coach Fulmer; and Coach Neyland at least had 1 yr as an assistant prior to hc, coming from 4 shutouts in '25).

This can be Butch's year and Team 121 can get him there, I do believe (9-3 or 10-2 is poss, imo).
 
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