Top 5 All Time “What Could Have Beens”

I have heard basically this exact same story, except a starting DB was telling me about it and it was the Troy game.

 

Troy was definitely one of those games you could tell the D was checked out on. Sal resorting to incoherently dog cussing everyone didn't help either according to what these guys told us. Dudes would [itch bay] about how they literally could not understand him when he was angry because he would become so unhinged that the only thing coming out of his mouth was spit and gibberish. The angrier he became, which was often, the more useless his communication was. This was so frequent it got to the point where anytime he screamed at them the message went straight through one ear and out the other.

 

We put 4.75 40 Teague man up on slot vs Florida with no help inside, outside or deep, multiple times. We called defenses that year like coaches who had never seen the game before

 

To me, this is the biggest what-if in Tennessee football history. If Johnny Majors had taken over in 1970 instead of Bill Battle, what would Tennessee football ben like?

 

It definitely is.

My only other contenders for the What Ifs would be....

- For Neyland to swallow his pride and hire Bobby Dodd in '53

OR

- For Neyland to bring in Murray Warmath instead of Bowden Wyatt in '55

 

Or if Bob Woodruff had hired Barry Switzer in December 69 instead of Battle.

 

What if whoever was the head coach at the time actually recruited a young QB from Johnson City named Steve Spurrier. Believe the story went according to Steve that Tennessee simply didn't think he would fit well in their offense at the time.

 

Florida might still be in obscurity.

 

It would have been someone else, eventually. No flagship state school south of the Mason-Dixon line with a population in the 8 figures is going to be obscure for long.

 

We were running a single wing offense. Spurrier was never going to come here, so why bother recruiting him.

 

Hindsight is 20/20, but could have been a good start to transitioning out of the Neyland era. Didn't our commitment to the single wing offense stagnate the program from what is was under Neyland?

 

Yes absolutely.