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Tennessee football: Top 10 Vols players who never won a championship

By Caleb Calhoun

ORLANDO - JANUARY 1: Quarterback Casey Clausen #7 of the Tennessee Volunteers calls an audible during the Citrus Bowl against the Michigan Wolverines on January 1, 2002 in Orlando, Florida. Tennessee won 45-17. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
ORLANDO - JANUARY 1: Quarterback Casey Clausen #7 of the Tennessee Volunteers calls an audible during the Citrus Bowl against the Michigan Wolverines on January 1, 2002 in Orlando, Florida. Tennessee won 45-17. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) /
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Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images
Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images /

We move to one of the greatest players in Tennessee football history and one of the only ones to have their number retired. When you talk about elite talent in the early 1980s on teams that underachieved, nobody fits that more than Reggie White.

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    • This doesn’t mean White underachieved, obviously. It’s a reflection on just how much Johnny Majors came up short early in his career. In White, he had arguably the greatest defensive lineman in NFL history.

    White became a sacks machine by his second year after sitting out much of his freshman season. As a pass-rusher big enough to line up at defensive tackle, he was simply impossible to block in college, which is why he was so amazing.

    Through three years, White had registered 17 sacks. But his fourth and final year, in 1983, he broke out into an unprecedented superstar.

    That season, White had 15 sacks on the year to set a school record. It also gave him the school record for career sacks with 32, only to be broken by Derek Barnett 33 years later, who got right at 33 sacks ironically.

    Before White, the greatest defensive lineman in school history was Doug Atkins, but he took that title easily. Tennessee football retired both of their numbers as they both became NFL Hall-of-Famers, a club Peyton Manning will join soon enough.

    The late Reggie White’s NFL success only made his legend grow in Knoxville. He was a sack machine and made tons of plays. But the Vols never had more than nine wins while he played there, which is why he is unfortunately on this list.

    Next: Tennessee football 2018 depth chart projection

    However, like Willie Gault and Bill Bates, White was part of the legendary win over the Alabama Crimson Tide in 1982. And he helped the team to a 9-3 record in 1983, his senior year. This clearly helped lay the foundation for what Majors was about to build, as the program finally took off in the late 1980s. Although White didn’t get to see it, he was a part of building it. And that’s a part of why he’s so great among Vols legends.

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