Question for you old timers

#26
#26
TnVol! said:
Battle had to go regardless of Majors success. Bills' demise was caused by his lack of recruiting and each year he was there his won loss record was progressively worse than the year before.
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This is pretty much what I was going to say. I think his recruiting was absolutely terrible. I am not sure he developed the talent well either.

It was a train wreck, and he was going to be fired. It was just a matter of who his replacement was going to be. He may be a good, smart guy, but I believe he was in way over his head at the time.
 
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#27
#27
OffTackleVol said:
Yep, this all day.
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I was at UTK, 67-71. Both Doug and Battle. We had an incredible run, could beat anyone anywhere except Texas in 1967. Vols football was superb for the fans. We beat Bear 4 straight and destroyed them for two of the years. Doug left Battle a top notch roster and he won with it. However, Battle could not recruit or coach for crap and we rapidly fell into the abyss. Battle was exactly what central casting would send for a coach. Clean cut, big necked, jutting jaw, lookem in the eye, Bear disciple, Christian gentleman . He went on to be a very successful businessman and Bama AD. My Dad's generation, Class of 1949, could not believe that someone like Battle was not the chosen one. Took Johnny and Phil years to dig out of the hole.
 
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#28
#28
Mose Phillip's Watch said:
Do you think Tn would have keep Bill Battle as head coach if Johnny Majors wasn't so successful at Pitt ? His record wasn't that bad

Just a little before my time
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No. Bill had difficulty recruiting enough SEC talent. The talent level had decreased to almost the low level that it is now. Also, at that time, Alabama Georgia and Florida were not he SEC powers that they are today. We were able to pick the best from SC UK VA and TN. Majors had a difficult time building the team and likely would not have survived in today's SEC. Remember, he recruited over 100 players his first year at Pitt which he could not do in the SEC.
 
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#31
#31
volsknx said:
@Mose Phillip's Watch there were other issues occurring off the field at that time. Had social media been around then, Knoxville would have been really popping. Battle's daughter got caught up in some things and one of them involved a football player, which at that time, was not kosher. He was on his way to having a cup named after him before they named it after Fulmer.
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I do not remember Bill Battle having a daughter, nor anything about this situation. Not sure that this post is slanderous and probably should be removed.
 
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#32
#32
Battle was never
Mose Phillip's Watch said:
Do you think Tn would have keep Bill Battle as head coach if Johnny Majors wasn't so successful at Pitt ? His record wasn't tha
Mose Phillip's Watch said:
Do you think Tn would have keep Bill Battle as head coach if Johnny Majors wasn't so successful at Pitt ? His record wasn't that bad

Just a little before my time
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Battle was never accepted at Tennessee, he was an outsider.
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#33
#33
OffTackleVol said:
I'd like to think this. The 1970 team Dickey left Battle was loaded. The '70 team beat Bama for the fourth win in a row over the Gumps, tying the series at 24 wins each. Many boosters and supporters stopped donating money by the mid 70's. How do I surmise that? As an invited walk on in August of '78, I can tell you the facilities were terrible. Gibbs Hall was close to being a dump. Weight room facility as well. Neyland needed all kinds of repair and updates. Our history may have played out much better if Woodruff had hired anyone other than a 28 year old Bama grad.
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Majors said immediately after his hiring that a massive upgrade in facilities had to be done. Woodruff was notorious money manager.
 
#35
#35
JWilly said:
As I recall, BB was not hugely popular among the Vol faithful. As long as his win-loss record was good he was accepted. When that slipped, and he couldn’t beat Bama, he became less and less accepted. When you listened to his interviews, he came across as not real bright but actually he was very much the opposite. He was an excellent business man.
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He’s a good man but he got a job like Tennessee way too early in his career.
 
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#36
#36
Mose Phillip's Watch said:
Do you think Tn would have keep Bill Battle as head coach if Johnny Majors wasn't so successful at Pitt ? His record wasn't that bad

Just a little before my time
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No, Battles record got worse and worse over his time here and his recruiting wasn't very good either.
 
#37
#37
i found battle prickly, unpleasant, in my only interview w/ him prior to ut game vs bama in 1972

. as a journalist, the interview was worthtless. as a lifelong tennessee fan, it was extremely disappoint\ing.
 
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#39
#39
ArdentVol said:
i found battle prickly, unpleasant, in my only interview w/ him prior to ut game vs bama in 1972

. as a journalist, the interview was worthtless. as a lifelong tennessee fan, it was extremely disappoint\ing.
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i need to add that i was attending college in NC from 1968 to 1972 and was not following UT football as much as I had in high school.
My Dad (UT class of 44) was very impressed with BB when he was hired. Later, I rememember being embarrassed bythemoving van incident.
 
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#43
#43
BigOrange#11 said:
I was born in 1965 but I studied the history of UT football. If you will watch a video called 100 years of Volunteers Col. Tom Elam explains what happened when Dickey left. Other trustees including Col. Elam wanted to go with Majors then but the AD at the time Bob Woodruff wanted to hire Battle. Elam’s reasoning was , if we ( the trustees ) go with Majors we will need to fire the AD and that is the last thing I want to do so we need to go with Battle. In my opinion this is the biggest mistake in UT football . Majors would have never let the program go down like Battle. Majors would have kept it at the top and UT may very well have been the dominant program in the SEC and not Alabama.
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Totally. And Majors was just hitting his stride then. Colossal Mistake! They should have given Bob the option of going with Majors or hit the door. Dammit.
 
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#45
#45
Bill Battle: 1970 (11-1), 1971 (10-2), 1972 (10-2), 1973 (8-4), 1974 (7-3-2), 1975 (7-5), 1976 ( 6-5)

You could say 3 good years with Dickey's recruits and digression every year afterwards which is all true.
Beat Alabama 24-0 his first year, then lost the next six 32-15, 10-6, 42-21, 28-6, 30-7, 20-13.
Record against Auburn was 2-5. 5-1-1 against Vandy, 6-1 against Kentucky and 3-2 against Ole Miss.
SEC records were 4-1, 4-2, 4-2, 3-3, 2-3-1, 3-3 and 2-4 in an era where the Vols played 5 SEC games in 1970 and then 6 afterwards which continued until 1989 when it went to 7 games and 8 conference games in 1992.
For my money, Battles=Majors. They did the same things in the same manner most years and had a few really good years tossed in there with the mediocre ones.


Battle's record was very Johnny Majors like. Rarely beat Alabama and Auburn. Made SEC hay against Kentucky, Ole Miss and Vanderbilt. Won a bunch of non-conference games including a few against big time programs. Doug Dickey was a better coach than Battle and arguably Majors, but was a surprisingly sound AD. There was always a contingent that wanted the homegrown Majors over Dickey of Florida and Battle of Alabama, just like there would be today.
 
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#50
#50
Recruiting was Battle’s downfall…I remember my dad (longtime fan and season ticket holder) joking about the Tennessee teams when I was in HS (‘74-‘76) “We might be small, but we are slow”

I also remember my dad laying some of the recruiting problems on Woodruff. He used to say, and I have no idea if it was true - we didn’t have internet boards back then so it was hard to find “truth” - that because Battle was so young Woodruff “helped” Battle with recruiting by telling him who to target.
 
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