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Tennessee football: Vols top five seasons following draft with under three picks

By Caleb Calhoun

1 Jan 1990: Running back James Rouse of the Arkansas Razorbacks runs down the field during the Cotton Bowl against the Tennessee Volunteers in Dallas, Texas. Tennessee won the game 31-27. Mandatory Credit: Joe Patronite /Allsport
1 Jan 1990: Running back James Rouse of the Arkansas Razorbacks runs down the field during the Cotton Bowl against the Tennessee Volunteers in Dallas, Texas. Tennessee won the game 31-27. Mandatory Credit: Joe Patronite /Allsport /
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Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images
Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images /

3. 1950: 11-1 (4-1)

National Championship; W Cotton Bowl; No. 4 AP; No. 3 Coaches

Number of 1950 NFL Draft picks: 1

  • Norm Messeroll, T (New York Bulldogs: Round 15; Pick 185)

It is true that the 1956 team went undefeated in the regular season while the 1950 team lost a game, and bowl games mattered less at the time. But Tennessee football has a more legitimate claim to the national title in 1950, so this one is slightly higher. There’s a reason this team was coming off such a light draft.

After going .500 in 1947, Robert Neyland updated his recruiting process and began rebuilding in 1948, going .500 again since he had signed lots of elite freshmen who couldn’t play yet. He built his team around young talent that would become the faces of the elite early 1950s teams: Hank Lauricella, Ted Daffer, Bud Sherrod, Bill Pearman, Jack Stroud and Bert Rechichar.

They were all young in 1949, though, and that team went 7-2-1, ending the consecutive .500 seasons and getting the program back into the top 20. That following year, the young team only saw Norm Messeroll taken in the draft, and he went to a now-defunct franchise and never actually made it in the pros.

So all the key talent was back, and then Doug Atkins was able to join the team. With still a bit of youth, they lost the second game of 1950 in an upset to the Mississippi State Bulldogs. But they would then win 20 straight, including back to back national titles.

This year, that involved a huge upset over Bear Bryant’s Kentucky Wildcats and a 20-14 Cotton Bowl win over the Texas Longhorns. At the time of the Cotton Bowl, UT was No. 4 and Texas was No. 3. Kentucky, who lost to UT, then beat the top-ranked Oklahoma Sooners, and the No. 2 ranked Army Black Knights lost to the Navy Midshipmen. So some services gave UT the title.

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