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

We go from a Nebraska Cornhusker to an Alabama Crimson Tide player for this next one. Tennessee football is currently under the leadership of an Alabama grad, though, so it’s pretty clear how painful this can be. Bill Battle could be lower by many standards.

He oversaw the program’s massive demise in the mid-1970s that Johnny Majors had to build back up. However, many of those were structural issues that Battle had nothing to do with. And if he had retired after just five years, he would have been even higher. Retiring after three would have him at the top of this list in terms of winning percentages.

But Battle, an assistant at UT for the previous four years, inherited a program that he helped build back up. He also guided it through a period of transition: integration, night games, pro-style offenses and Bear Bryant, his coach at Alabama, dominating the SEC. And through all that, he went 11-1, 10-2 and 10-2 his first three years.

That included a Top 5 finish, three top 10 finishes, and a Sugar Bowl win. Beyond that, he integrated the SEC at quarterback by coaching Condredge Holloway from 1972 to 1974, and he had five straight top 25 finishes. Holloway’s departure wrecked the program the way Joshua Dobbs did to Butch Jones, but those results can’t be ignored. It’s why he’s No. 4.