Tennessee football: Top five coaches who worked under Johnny Majors

Here are five elite coaches who worked under the Tennessee football Volunteers legend.

Note: This is part of a series of posts remembering Johnny Majors and all that he accomplished for Tennessee football as a player and a coach. 

The late Johnny Majors, who passed away last week at age 85, is as famous for the legendary coaches he produced as he is for his own success. He created numerous legends, and not just during his time as head coach of the Tennessee football program.

Jimmy Johnson, who won a national title with the Miami Hurricanes and two Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys, was a protege of Majors when he was coaching the Iowa State Cyclones. Jackie Sherrill followed Majors at the Pittsburgh Panthers and then restored the Mississippi State Bulldogs to a level of success in the 1990s.

But even at Tennessee football alone, Majors produced coaches who won a national champions and a Super Bowl championship. Two of his proteges are still coaching to this day, a testament to the guys he developed.

As we remember Majors’ success on Rocky Top, in this post, we’re going to rank the greatest coaches who studied under him as assistants during that time. This will reveal how great of a developer he was.

The criteria for this one is simple. Coaches had to be a member of Majors’ staff during the time he was head coach of the Vols from 1977 to 1992, and they will be judged on the success they had specifically as head coaches.

Johnson and Sherrill are eliminated from that since they didn’t study under Majors on Rocky Top, but even without them, Majors has an elite track record of producing great coaches. That’s incredible that he could still have an impressive list and not need those two guys.

Which other coaches are we talking about? What level of success did they reach? Let’s break all of that down here. These are the five greatest head coaches who studied under Johnny Majors when he was Tennessee football’s head coach.