Tennessee football: Ranking 10 Vols coaches from other Power Five schools

Just before M.B. Banks, the man to guide Tennessee football through its first interruption as a program ironically was a Nebraska Cornhuskers graduate. Why is that relevant? Well, nearly a century later, Nebraska would be a school to torment the Vols at their peak, as they could never figure out the triple-option offense.

The man coming from Nebraska to take over was John R. Bender. He had led the Huskers to undefeated seasons in 1902 and 1903. Before UT, he had coached the South Dakota State Normal, Washington State and Haskell Indian Nations football teams along with the Saint Louis Billikens and the Kansas State Aggies (now Wildcats) over 11 years. His record was 49-27-3.

As a program on the rise, the Vols continued their momentum under Bender. They went 8-0-1 his first year and won the Southern Conference Championship, also scoring their second win ever over the Vanderbilt Commodores. There was a two-year hiatus after that due to World War I, and he returned in 1919 to a .500 record. However, they went 7-2 in 1920.

After that, Banks replaced Bender. But Bender’s 18-5-4 record puts him fourth on the list in all-time winning percentages among full-time UT head coaches and second on this list. However, he inherited a program on the rise, had a very small sample size and coached in an early era. Those things all work against him in these rankings.