UT played football long before 1965. Check the records for the entire history of the program to get the tradition. The tradition did not start with PF's spurt of success in the nineties. And given that the 45-5 record that made him some kind of hero in the eyes of his supporters, and that is an excellent record for a short period, his record for the last 8-10 years was no better than UT's overall winning percentage for its entire history. His conference record was also no better for that last decade, maybe actually a bit worse, than UT's all-time conference winning percentage.
I don't have to check the records to understand UT's history and tradition. I know that the "Tradition" was established by Neyland.
I'm beginning to think that you really don't know as much as you think.
Take a look at the overall record since 1891 and then tell me about this winning tradition.
1891-93 and 1896-87 student coached teams 5yrs 12-11-0 .522
18991900 J. A. Pierce 2yrs 9-4-1 .654
1901 George Kelley 1yrs 3-3-2 .500
1902-03 H. F. Fisher 2yrs 10-7-0 .588
1904 S. D. Crawford 1yr 3-5-1 .389
1905-06 J. D. Depree 2yrs 4-11-3 .305
1907-09 George Levene 3yrs 15-10-3 .589
1910 Andrew A. Stone 1yrs 3-5-1 .389
1911-15 Zora G. Clevenger 5yrs 26-15-2 .628
1916, 1919-20 John R. Bender 3yrs 18-5-4 .741
1921-25 M. B. Banks 5yrs 27-15-3 .633
1926-34, 1936-40, 1946-52 Robert Neyland 21yrs 173-31-12 .829
1935 W. H. Britton 1yr 4-5-0 .444
1941-42, 1944-45 John Barnhill 4yrs 32-5-2 .846
1953-54 Harvey Robinson 2yrs 10-10-1 .500
1955-62 Bowden Wyatt 8yrs 49-29-4 .622
1963 Jim McDonald 1yr 5-5-0 .500
1964-69 Doug Dickey 6yrs 46-15-4 .738
1970-76 Bill Battle 7yrs 59-22-2 .723
1977-92 Johnny Majors 16yrs 116-62-8 .645
1992-08 Phillip Fulmer 17yrs 152-52-0 .769
2009 Lane Kiffin 1yr 7-6-0 .583
2010 Derek Dooley 1 0-0-0 .000
22 coaches 110yrs 778wins 329losses 53ties winning % .693