It has now been 50 years. Although the 1965 team had some great wins, it is perhaps best remembered for a tragic loss suffered off the football field. On the morning of Oct. 18, three UT assistant football coaches were killed in a train-car crash in West Knoxville. One of the coaches whose life was taken was Bill Majors, the 26-year-old younger brother of former UT coach John Majors and the son of the late former Sewanee football coach Shirley Majors. Today, Bill Majors’ family can only speculate as to what he might have accomplished, had he lived longer. His younger brother, Larry, thinks he could have been a college head coach if he had desired. “In my opinion, when Doug Dickey went to Florida (after the 1969 season), they would have given the job to Bill,” he said over the telephone from his home in Estill Springs, Tenn. Instead, Bill Battle, who was hired for the 1966 season to replace one of the deceased coaches, ended up becoming the head coach. http://www.chattanoogan.com/2005/12/5/76809/Memories-1965-UT-Football-Team-Coach.aspx
Wow... I have Russ Bebb's book "The Big Orange" and that chapter was always really sad to me. Less than 48 hours after Stabler threw the ball out of bounds to close out a 7-7 tie with Alabama they were dead... That was the same year that ended up with the wild UCLA game in Memphis....
65-69 was the best single run in the program's history imo. Had Dickey stayed, they would have won the national title in '70 and either '71 or '73. Sadly though, Dickey left for grayer pastures and spent his entire tenure at Florida trying to integrate UF with the same success that was easily accepted at Tennessee in 1968.
