Tennessee football: Vols 5 worst seasons with second-year head coach

5. John R. Bender

Year: 1919

Record: 3-3-3 (0-3-2 SIAA)

There were lots of candidates for this fifth spot. Tennessee football has had three different head coaches go .500 their second year. Johnny Majors went 5-5-1 in 1978, and Zora G. Clevenger went 4-4 in 1912.

Ironically, those are two of maybe the five greatest coaches in school history. Bender, meanwhile, had an unfair advantage. This was the first team the Vols had fielded in three years, as World War I kept them from playing in 1917 and 1918.

So what puts it on the list? Well, the drop-off does. Bender had a drop-off similar to UT’s first ever head coach, J.A. Pierce, who went from 6-2 to 3-2-1, and similar to Phillip Fulmer, who went from 9-2-1 to 8-4. But .500 ball is worse than both of those.

The Vols, still in the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association, had gone 8-0-1 Bender’s first year in 1916 and won the conference title, which was two years after they had gone 9-0 under Clevenger. So the program seemed to be on the rise. A 2-0-1 start that included a tie with the Vanderbilt Commodores implied that it was still rolling after the war as well.

But then they lost two straight to the Mississippi A&M Aggies (eventually Mississippi State Bulldogs) and Clemson Tigers, and then they tied the North Carolina Tar Heels and South Carolina Gamecocks. A win over the Cincinnati Bearcats and loss to the Kentucky Wildcats resulted in a .500 season with no conference wins.

Bender rebounded with a 7-2 recored and 5-2 SIAA record the next season, which was his final one. So he can’t be considered a failed head coach. But this was certainly a bad second season for him. It’s just understandable why he struggled.