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Interesting Neyland essay
Topic Started: Jul 27 2009, 11:58 AM (331 Views)
BillVol
All Around Vol

http://www.archive.org/stream/footballsgreates010566mbp/footballsgreates010566mbp_djvu.txt

Lots of errors in the text probably from conversion to txt I guess. Good read anyhow. From above link.


GENERAL ROBERT REESE NEYLAND
"You've Got to Get Wet All Over."



IT WAS DECEMBER, 1947, AND ' IN THE IDIOM THEN CURRENT, THINGS
were tough all over. As the cold war grew hotter, the mountain
citadel of Knoxvllle, Tennessee less than an hour's drive from
the Oak Ridge home of the atomic bombneared a state of riot.

It wasn't the international crisis that had Knoxville bothered.
Its football team was only breaking even.

Wasn't so much the University of Tennessee squad, fans
groused, as it was the coach. "It's that covered-wagon offense,"
some suggested. "Why doesn't he throw out that old-fashioned
single- wingback formation and switch to the T?"

The coach's wife actually asked him to quit. He was drawing
a brigadier general's retirement pay, and he was feeling the
physical strain of thirty-three years of painstaking devotion to
military and athletic duty. Why not chuck it all, take off for
Florida, and leave the spoiled brats of a golden sports tradition
to stew in their own juice?

General -Robert Reese Neyland (pronounced Nee-land),
schooled at West Point, holder of the Distinguished Service
Medal, Legion of Merit, and Order of the British Empire, and
at one time an aide to General Douglas MacArthur, never even
considered retreat.

Four years later to the month, the gray-hackled boss of un-
beaten Tennessee's Sugar-Bowl-bound forces relaxed in the salon
of New Orleans's International House. He was taking a breather
from the jaw-wagging of the Southeastern Conference meeting.
Beside him sat a morose Wallace Butts, Georgia bowl master who
himself was borne along on the crest of the T-formation craze
at the same time Neyland's hide was being verbally nailed to the
pine paneling of every fraternity den in Knoxville.

The general smiled. "Don't worry, Wally," he counseled,
"someday the T will come back."

That sally, so unlike the reticent old Spartan, illustrated sim-
ply and fully Neyland's belief in himself and his single-wingback
formation.

This was the man Knute Rockne called "football's greatest
coach"; the man whom Wallace Wade, Alabama and Duke cham-
pionship coach, called "the best coach in all phases of football";
the man Bernie Moore, Louisiana State chieftain in Ole Lou's
halcyon era, gave up playing because he could not beat him;
the man who, in balloting for the coach of the all-time Asso-
ciated Press Ail-American team, was outranked only by Amos
Alonzo Stagg and Pop Warner; the man who produced four un-
beaten and untied teams and five others whose only blemishes
were ties. In one span, Tennessee had lost just one of sixty-one
games.

"You always know what Bob Neyland is going to do," Alabama
veteran Hank Crisp mourned, "but just try and stop Mm!"

Neyland's retirement in 1955 removed a football titan. His
record for 1926-34, 1936-40, and 1946-53 was an astonishing 1*71
triumphs, 27 losses, 12 ties.

In the glittering 1938-39-40 period of Tennessee football
(thirty victories, no losses) , Johnny Butler whirled fifty-six yards
to a touchdown against Alabama. That '39 run may be the great-
est in the history of Knoxville's Shield-Watkins Field.

In a blown-up picture of the play, you can see Butler swiveling
his orange suit into and out of impossible coveys of tacklers. You
also will notice center Norbert Ackennan laying out one Alaba-
man and tackle Don Edmiston rising after another perfect block.
End Ed Cifers is wheeling along beside wingback Breezer An-
dridge looking for more victims, and guard Al Thomas lies atop
an immobilized Tidesman. Tackle Bill Luttrell draws a bead
on the closest Alabama man to Butler, and end Mike Balitsarls
mows down the safety man.

After Tennessee tripped Texas, 20-14, in the 1950 Cotton Bowl
game, Longhorn line-backer Don Menasco groaned, "Every time
I got up, somebody knocked me down again."

Such was Neyland football.

There still hangs a sign in the Tennessee dressing room, and
Neyland wrote it: ONE GOOD INTERFERER IS WORTH
THREE BALL-CARRIERS!

Neyland players either were blockers or bench-warmers. But
there was more than just blocking to the Neyland system. Tim-
ing was the true mainspring around which the eleven-jewel Vol
masterpieces were fashioned.

In younger days, Neyland, still carrying the oxlike frame of
his college days as heavyweight boxing champion, big-league
pitching prospect, and crack end, demonstrated timing in a most
peculiar way. He would blindfold himself and line up at tail-
back. "Snap me the ball on three," he told the center. "You
there at end! Take ten steps downfield, five to your left, and
look up for a pass."

The center respectfully submitted the pigskin to Neyland,
who, counting under his breath, took the ball, faded, and shot a
perfect bull's eye to the receiver.

Football, like bridge-building, was always an exact science
with the general. He would interrupt conversations with re-
porters to snatch a stop watch and time a passer or punter.

"Any passer who can't get that ball away in less than three
seconds isn't worth his scholarship," he maintained. Hank Lauri-
cella, 1951 All- American, was a master of such rapidity. But the
tailback had peerless assistance from the selfsame "cup-blocking"
protection that Neyland brought south just as he did the use
of the stop watch in football, huge canvas coverings for protec-
tion of the playing field, and low-cut shoes to make his men
faster.

One of football's fiercest rivalries matched Neyland and Geor-
gia Tech's Bobby Dodd. Dodd was an Ail-American quarterback
under Neyland in 1950. When his little scooters, specializing in
a sleight-of-hand that Dodd learned in part under Neyland, wal-
loped Tennessee 27-0 in the 1947 opener, it was the highest
score ever run up on the venerable tactician. "Our season's a
success right now," said Dodd at dusk.

And Dodd is first to credit Neyland for the basic concepts of
the pass defense that helped make Tech a national scourge In
the 1950*5. Neyland's pass defense entailed (i) a zone system,
(2) anticipation of where the passer would throw, and (3) abil-
ity to judge the ball in flight. Dodd remembers a time. . . .

Tennessee, once beaten In '30, was playing Florida In Its final
game. The score was tied, 6-6, and the Gators had the ball near
midfield in the final half. Dodd and Buddy Hackman were on
defense. Florida's tailback fired a pass into Dodd's zone. Hack-
man, Instead, was off and bolting with the release of the ball.
He came dashing across field, snatched the ball from Dodd's taut
fingertips and turned on his breathless speed down the side line
and into end zone. But an official ruled he had stepped out.
Hackman calmly threw him the ball and trotted back.

A moment later, Florida uncorked another pass. Again It shot
toward Dodd. Again Hackman streaked toward It. ("When the
ball is In the air, it's anyone's property/* Neyland taught.)

It was Hackman's sixth Interception that day. And this time
he was gone. Tennessee won, 13-6, because Neyland had recog-
nized Hackman's potential and drummed Ms principles Into the
boy until they were automatic.

The fundamentals of the Neyland offense that carried Tennes-
see to Its Ineffable record of only one defeat over the seven years
from November, 1926, to October, 1933, were few and simple.

At one time, Tennessee used less than twenty-five plays. "When
I played for old Charley Daley at West Point," Neyland said,
"he never had more than twenty-eight. In my book. It's not the
number of plays you have, but die way you execute them." Ney-
land said he never ran a play before It had been rehearsed at
least five hundred times.

Doubtless the outstanding play In the Neyland repertoire was
the running optional pass. Neyland Introduced it during Ms first
year at Tennessee. It produced at least fifty touchdowns for him,
and one of the best examples came in the Auburn-Tennessee
dash In 1939.

Tennessee was undefeated, untied, unscored upon. Notifica-
tion had been received that the Vols would be Invited to the
Rose Bowl at Pasadena If they beat Auburn.

The game was tied o-o in the fourth quarter and Tennessee
was at its thirty-six. Johnny Butler, tailback and signal-caller,
brought the team into the huddle and said, "This play is Left
Formation, Play Number One. If I get a chance to run, I am
going to run instead of pass. Give me some blocking!"

On the snap from center, Butler started full speed to his left,
faked inside the end, then swung outside. The fullback took the
Auburn right end, and Tennessee's left end and wingback went
on pass routes. The blocking back shot out along the line of
scrimmage, ready to receive a pass or block, as the play developed.
Butler slowed, lifted the ball as though to pass, then tore down-
field. The wingback, end, and blocking back picked off Auburn's
secondary with one exception. That lone Plainsman came across
and made a desperate try at Butler near the side lines about
midfield. Butler dodged, fell off balance, actually ran backward
five yards before regaining control. When he recovered, he had
a clear field, and he made it untouched. Tennessee won, 7-0, and
the Rose Bowl bid was received and accepted that night.

On the same play in 1930, Dodd threw to Hackman for the
first touchdown of the 13-6 victory over Florida. In 1936, Phil
Dickens pitched to Bowden Wyatt (present Tennessee head
coach) for the winning score against Vanderbilt. Butler fired to
Al Hust in 1940, for a vital touchdown in the 27-12 victory over
Alabama. In 1946, Walt Slater hit Bill Hillman with the winning
pass of the 12-7 verdict over Duke. In 1947, J. B. Proctor passed
to Fielden for the winner in the 13-6 decision over Kentucky.

The deep reverse and the off-tackle play were other classical
Neyland maneuvers.

There is no need to argue that Neyland's system is perfect.
If it were, it would be the first. For example, Neyland is credited
with introducing to Dixie the press-box-to-bench telephone.
That's how much of the coaching is done in today's games. But
it was such top-secret stuff in the beginning that for months after
an Associated Press sports writer named Roy Hutchens wrote a
story "exposing" it, he was barred from Tennessee athletic of-
fices.

Expert use of phone relay tips won many games for Neyland.
But in 1942, Neyland had re-entered the army and John Barn-
hill was head coach. The Old Man was home on a visit when
U.T. played the University of Mississippi. Straight power foot-
ball plied up an early 14-0 Vol lead. Suddenly Mississippi coach
Harry Mehre was called from his bench by a pal who stood near
the hedge holding a telephone.

Mehre clomped over, scowling. "Listen," said the friend, ex-
tending the receiver.

A voice crackled through the wire. "They're ripe for the re-
verse."

"Well!" Mehre lit up, "If it Isn't my old friend Neyland home
a-helpin'. Isn't this lovely a party line!"

Neyland was calling Tennessee's offense from the press box,
and Mehre was as diligently listening. Tennessee did not score
again that day.

"Throw one In the flat," Neyland would instruct his bench.

"You!" the wire-tapping Mehre would shriek, holding his hand
over the speaker, "tell the boys to watch for the Eat pass."

Some years later, Barnhill observed innocently to Mehre that
Mississippi "sure did perk up after we got those first two touch-
downs."

Such items, of course, are deep in the red on Neyland's lifetime
ledger. His modus operandi was too meticulous for much margin
of error.

Besides his ironbound ideas on strategy, Neyland also was a
magnificent disciplinarian. When Vols wool-gathered, he jolted
them. In Miami, just before Tennessee slaughtered Oklahoma In
the 1939 Orange Bowl, All- American guard Bob Suffridge mut-
tered an anti-Neyland epithet on the practice field. "For that,
Suffridge," said the general, staring down the star, "you can stay
in the hotel the rest of the time down here."

No bathing beauties, no sunshine, no swimming pools, no
nothing for Suffridge for ten days. That he played one of his
finest games in the 17-0 whacking of Oklahoma was testimony
enough to Neyland's deft penal touch.

At that, Suffridge and an equally puckish crony had the last
laugh. The two had become such pranksters that Neyland or-
dered them to dissolve their rooming partnership. Some days
later, he summoned the two.

"Suffridge," he demanded, "have you two split up?"

"Well, sir," said the guard, "nobody will room with either
of us/'

"You two," thundered Neyland, "remind me of a pair of cadets
we had at West Point who"

"Sure, sir," interjected Suffridge, "but who was the other one?"

On February 17, 1892, Robert Reese Neyland, Jr., was born
to attorney Bob Neyland and Pauline Lewis Neyland in Green-
ville, Texas.

The jet-thatched babe clutched success to his bosom from the
start. He captained football, basketball, and baseball teams in
high school. He went to Burleson Junior College for a year, then
moved to Texas A. & M., where he became a pupil of Charley
Moran, who was to gain fame as coach of Centre College's Prayin*
Colonels and as a National League baseball umpire.

Neyland was a precocious chap but no match for bull-necked
Charley Moran. One day, when the youngster was sulking over
some supposed athletic inequity, his mentor said bluntly, "Why
don't you get some guts?"

Neyland woke up.

Two illustrious careers crossed and blended happily in the
next year. With his athletic and academic brilliance, the young
Texan caught the eye of Congressman Sam Rayburn. Rayburn
won for Bob an appointment to the United States Military
Academy.

Neyland opened his West Point career quietly enough. But
in his second year there, he was sentenced to walk the bull ring
for what seemed to him only routine plebe hazing. His sphere
of freedom included the gymnasium. It was characteristic that
Neyland turned judicial defeat into athletic triumph. "One of
the few things left open to us was boxing," he said, "and I de-
termined Fd show 'em. I said I'd get to be boxing champion."

Champion he became. For three years the sagebrush sprig
ruled the heavyweight roost at Army. It was a proud boast of
Elmer Oliphant, one of Army's all-time great athletes, that he
once lasted three rounds with Neyland.

Lean, bone-hard Bob was a crack end, too, but it was from
another field that he garnered his greatest athletic achievement.
Pitching for Army, he won twenty straight baseball games,
finished his career with thirty-five victories against only five
defeats.

Neyland seldom mentioned the time he was hit on the head
with a pitched ball In a game, courageously carried on, and re-
ceived a commendatory letter for It from (of all people) the
Secretary of the Navy.

John McGraw and the New York Giants offered Neyland
$3,500 to sign a baseball contract, but sporting success had to
wait upon the military. Neyland went to the Mexican border as
an engineer. In 1917, he was in France, and three years later was
back at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a graduate stu-
dent. "Neyland ought to be smart!" snapped a coaching foe in
later years. "He went to four colleges."

But West Point was not done with Neyland. He was called
back In '21 as an assistant coach and aide-de-camp to academy
superintendent General Douglas MacArthur. A historic coinci-
dence threw the ambitious young officer In with the ramrod who
framed the words: "On the fields of friendly strife axe sown the
seeds which In other years on other fields will bear the fruits of
victory."

In 1923, Neyland married Ada Fitch of Grand Rapids, Michi-
gan. Two years later, through a ruling permitting army person-
nel to mix duties with outside jobs, he accepted an assistant
coaching job at Tennessee In conjunction with an R.O.T.C.
Instructorship. He got 700 for coaching the ends.

One year was all Neyland needed to become head coach. At
8:00 A.M., September 6, 1926, Neyland spawned a career that
blasted the saying that "no Tennessee men become head coaches."
Neyland schooled a dozen head coaches and more than a hundred
aides at colleges and high schools from California to Florida.

Many of the best learned their football under Neyland: Flor-
ida's Bob Woodruff, Minnesota's Murray Warmath, Arkansas's
John Barnhill, Wyoming's Phil Dickens, Memphis State's Ralph
Hatley, Kansas State's Bill Meek, the Citadel's Quinn Decker,
Texas Tech's DeWitt Weaver, Tech's Bobby Dodd, and Ten-
nessee's Bowden Wyatt.

The thirty-three-year-old boss gathered a tiny coaching staff.

Bill Britton coached the ends, Paul Parker the line, Neyland the
backielcL In the nine complete seasons 1926-34, they enscrolled
the amazing record of seventy-five victories and five losses.

Captain Neyland faced a plague of problems from the outset,
though. Tennessee's athletic association had netted less than |6o
in 19^5. The cracker-box stadium seated only 3,200. Neyland was
hired to beat Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt beat him, 20-3, the first
year. But from then until his retirement, Neyland's record against
Vandy was sixteen triumphs, three losses, and one tie. The dead-
lock occurred in Neyland's second season. After a more-than-
respectable 8-1 record on his maiden voyage, his '27 record again
was smudged only by Vanderbilt.

That season established Tennessee for the first time as a na-
tional threat. The Vols shared the southern crown with Georgia
Tech.

Neyland, at thirty-five, had matured as a football coach. Yet
1928 was to stamp Neyland even more indelibly as a maker of
teams versed in technique to the final fractional detail.

Neyland challenged Wallace Wade of Alabama. Alabama was
a 5-1 favorite in Tuscaloosa. Seconds before the kickoff, a Tide
partisan Jumped up. ''Here's 52,000!** he cried. "And it says
Tennesse won't score!'*

Hardly were the words out when paddle-footed Gene McEver,
peer of all Neyland players, snatched the Tide kickoff and struck
up the middle. Few of the massed throng knew what was hap-
pening. Wade did, and shuddered. The kickoff was a regular
play in Neyland's book.

At midfield, McEver veered to his right. There near the side
line he found Neyland's trade mark blockers, two of them and
they bore Mm untouched to goal and glory.

It was 7-0 before the absurdity of the thing dawned upon the
crowd. Alabama's Flash Suther restored reason within seconds.
From the fifty, he spun into the line and wheeled to his left for
a touchdown. But when the conversion failed, Tennessee still
led, 7-6, and eventually took home a 15-6 decision. Neyland
had measured the master.

The rolling stone barged 0026-7, 57-0, 37-0, 6-0. Kentucky
wrote in a scoreless tie, but U.T. nosed Florida, 13-12, on Hack-
man's interception, and was unbeaten for the second straight sea-
son. McEver blasted to a national high of 130 points.

It was Tennessee's third consecutive undefeated year. Neyland
had built a backfield operation to stand beside Notre Dame's
Four Horsemen of Harry Stuhldreher, Jim Crowley, Rip Miller,
and Elmer Layden, and Stanford's '39 foursome of Frankle Al-
bert, Norm Standlee, Hugh Gallarneau, and Pete Kmetovic.
Tennessee's was quarterback Dodd, who gave Neyland nervous
prostration with his field-reversing tactics after taking direct
snaps; the unmatched "Hack and Mack" Buddy Hackman at
wlngback, Gene McEver at tailback and an alternating trio of
Quinn Decker, Hugh Faust, and Ty Disney at fullback.

By 1930, Neyland had engineered Tennessee into a 100,000-
a-year gate attraction. Still an army officer, the major was turn-
ing out football champions with one hand and dredging the Ten-
nessee and Cumberland rivers with the other. But in 1935, Ney-
land was called to Panama. At forty- two, he was out of football
for the first time in fourteen years. It seemed another world. Foot-
ball was changing and passing him by. He was pestered by an
Inquietude that knew only one remedy return.

As it happened, Tennessee lost all its big games under Britton
that year. Convinced that Neyiand's restorative touch was essen-
tial, the school cabled him an offer of $12,000 per year.

"My family was in ill health," Neyland recalled later. "I missed
football terribly. The salary offered me was miles In excess of any-
thing I could have made in service. So I turned in my saber and
signed a five-year contract at Tennessee."

After twenty-three years in khaki, Bob Neyland was a civilian.

Neyland's 1938 team stands supreme. George (Bad News)
Cafego was a dream of a tailback. All- American guards Suffrldge
and Ed Molinski were, fortunately, as eager at wounding the
enemy as snapping at each other. Suffrldge was a piquant cuss.
One day Neyland, viewing movies of a game in which Suffridge
had pulled out in the wrong direction, asked him what he was
about Suffndge said, "Well, I knew that defensive guard was
going to follow me anywhere I went. So I figured I might as well
go the wrong way and get him out of position."

That team, In the Neyland tradition, was a miracle of con-
ditioning. Officerlike, Neyland drove them. "To play for Ney-
land/' fullback Len Coffman told Tom Siler, of the Knoxville
News-Sentinel, "you've got to get wet all over!"

It well may be that Neyland's military training was the greatest
single aid to his coaching. One precept bears this out with
emphasis. Neyland's basic philosophy was that of a division com-
mander: Let the enemy move and then trap It.

For that reason, he always stressed defense. "You can only
score three ways when you have the ball," he said, "by passing,
running, or kicking. And often you must wear yourself out on
a sustained drive. I f d rather give the other team the ball deep
in Its territory, then try to capitalize on a fumble, Intercepted
pass, blocked punt, safety, or on downs. I don't want the ball
inside my thirty-yard line/'

In the last game Neyland coacheda 46-0 thumping of Van-
derbilt in 1952 the Vols scored their first two touchdowns after
a recovered fumble and Intercepted pass.

Neyland actually quit golf because, as he explained, "you can't
make par play your game. . . . There's no man-to-man conflict . . .
nobody to outwit. You can't outthink a ball/'

The '39 troops won ten straight before Southern Cal laid it on
In the Rose Bowl. With Amby Schlndler and Grenny Lansdell
stomping, the Trojans of Howard Jones Ignored Tennessee's
twenty-three-victory skein, scored just before half time, and sent
the weary Vols Into Intermission behind, 7-0.

Neyland paced the fioor In his habitual gray suit and surveyed
his men, grim-visaged. "I know you're thinking you're going to
get licked/* he stormed. "But you're not! They can't stop our
driving, slashing attack this half!"

It was a valiant stab at spiritual revival. Ray Graves, later
Georgia Tech line coach, was on that team and gets a chuckle
from the recollection. "I guess Schlndler and Lansdell couldn't
hear him/' Graves says, "because they kicked the daylights out
of us the last two quarters, too, and beat us, fourteen to nothing."

Neyland may have been spreading at the middle In 1940, but
his new team was as scalpel-like In Its single-wing attack as most
of those before. It, too, went 10-0; still, bowl glory for the second
straight year eluded the frantic clutch of Neyland and Tennessee.
Frank Leahy's Boston Collegians whipped Tennessee, 19-13, In
the Sugar Bowl. In the fourth quarter, with the score tied 13-13,
B.C.'s Charley O'Rourke faked a pass and tore Inside Tennessee's
end to score the winning touchdown.

The 73,000 fans did not fully appreciate the irony. The win-
ning play w r as stripped from Neyland's own repertoire.

Neyland was beckoned back to service In 1941. The succeeding
year, he performed a remarkable coaching job. At War Depart-
ment behest, he assembled an Army all-star team that In four
days whipped the pro New York Giants, 16-0, and Brooklyn
Dodgers, 14-7. Four days later It bowed to the world champion
Chicago Bears only by 14-7.

When the general arrived In the China-Burma-India theater
to take over as chief of services and supply to U.S. troops In
China, Major General W. E. R. Covell remarked, "We've got the
first team out here now/*

In 1946, he came back to Knoxville's Hill to wrestle with a
squad largely composed of veterans. After five years of restric-
tions, they w r anted freedom. Yet so adaptable was Neyland's dis-
ciplinary technique that his club lost only one game that year,
and stopped Rice In the 1947 Orange Bowl, 8-0.

Look now at Neyland's record as a head coach through 1946
15 losses in 145 starts! And nobody, until Dodd turned the trick
In '47, had ever scored more than twenty points on the old master.

The 1947 split found Neyland at low ebb In the public eye.
But he knew T he was building and was not overly chagrined at
another even break in '48. At his spacious apartment on Kingston
Pike, he would tell Interrogators that U.T. simply had a young
team. As early as '49 though, the Vols knocked off five high-
powered teams.

Neyland's silver anniversary as Tennessee head coach was cele-
brated In 1950. Fans presented him with a Cadillac before the
opening hatcheting of Mississippi Southern, but Mississippi State
snuck up and poleaxed Tennessee, 7-0, the next week. And it
looked for a few minutes the following Saturday as if Duke might
make it two in a row.

The Blue Devils of Neyland's old adversary Wallace Wade
fought a frenzied stalemate for the first quarter. On the side line,
Neyland called backs Hank Lauricella and Andy Kozar to him.
He led them to the blackboard he always kept on the field. While
fans watched quizzically, the general resketched a play he had
Installed the year before as part of the spectacular buck-lateral
series. He finally threw down the chalk, clapped his players on
the back, and sent them In.

Blocking back Jimmy Hahn took the ball, faked to Lauricella
at tailback, handed to Kozar at full. Kozar burst fifty yards for
the touchdown that set Tennessee off to a 287 victory.

"I knew it!" exulted a spectator who had stood nearby during
the coach's chalk talk. "I always said he was the smartest man in
football. He makes up a play right out of his head on the bench
and a minute later it's good for a touchdown!"

Tennessee went on to stun Texas, 20-14, in the Cotton Bowl,
and looked loaded for '51. Then All-American guard Ted Daffer
got married and automatically lost his scholarship. Doug Atkins,
a brilliant end, was dismissed from school. With the stars went
U.T/s hopes for one of its finest teams.

Daffer, though, worked his way back. Atkins returned and
paid Ms own expenses. Neyland alternated Lauricella and Herky
Payne at fullback in Ingenious fashion. Lauricella handled the
broken-field stuff down to the twenty. Then In came power-guy
Payne and bang! Tennessee smashed ten opponents, 239 points
to 81.

The Vols were asked to the Sugar Bowl again. And here Ney-
land's benevolence toward young coaches tripped him. One
spring, he had lent Maryland's Jim Tatum a huge ledger of
"Neylandia," his thoughts on football, his system in its entirety.
Maryland, under Tatum, blitzed Tennessee 28-13, on January
i 1952. Trying to stem the Terrapins* splendid spllt-T running
attack, Neyland brought in one of his deep men, leaving only two
away back there. It was a lifelong principle with him to keep
three defenders deep to guard against the "home run." Still the
Terps murdered him running. For once, Neyland's precious per-
centages had backfired.

His final season was a bright one, though, and his same old
percentages were going for him. Only Duke beat Tennessee in

Standing in the inch-deep snow and muck of Nashville as his
boys finished the season by crushing Vanderbilt, 46-0, was the
clincher for the general in his argument against age and assorted
physical difficulties. He had long had trouble with his teeth.
His liver was acting up. So he played the percentages, and im-
mediately after Tennessee lost to Texas 16-0 in the Cotton Bowl,
he quit coaching and remained just an athletic director.

Neyland never countenanced fly-by-night formations or tactics.
He never was a party to flamboyancy or exhibitionism. He re-
fused to give radio interviews, shunned after-dinner speeches. He
turned down lucrative endorsements and magazine authorship
offers. "I'm hired to teach football and that's what 1 do/* he
said.

The night before the Sugar Bowl game of '53, Neyland became
the first coach to miss the burning of the brandy at Antoine's
Restaurant. After the game, he appeared at the traditional party
only briefly.

At times like these, Neyland seemed cold in the extreme, and
it took a lot of knowing to like him* But the general had his
warm side football. And, beaten only 27 times in 210 games,
there never was a hotter coach over a third of a century.

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