The Tennessee football Volunteers from 1954 to 1996 had the fingerprints of these men.
In 1956, Bill Johnson was blocking for Johnny Majors, helping Majors to nearly win the Heisman Trophy as the two led Tennessee football to an SEC Championship. Over 20 years later, Johnson helped bring his former teammate back to Rocky Top as head coach.
However, an alleged coup that many say resulted in Majors’ ouster in 1992 was said to involve Johnson. This is the history that these two had, from teammates to a coach-board member relationship to a move that dramatically altered the landscape of Big Orange Country.
Johnson passed away on Sunday at 84 years old. Majors passed away in June earlier this year. Both Tennessee football legends passing away in the same year is ironic given how much they shaped the landscape of the Vols over four decades.
The story starts in 1953. Majors joined Rocky Top as a star back from Franklin County, Tenn., which is on the state’s border with Alabama. He was recruited by Robert Neyland but became part of the program under Harvey Robinson as a freshman and still wasn’t allowed to play yet.
A year later, though, when he became eligible to play, Johnson joined the program out of Sparta, Tenn. in White County, about 70 miles north and slightly east of where Majors came from. By 1955, the two became teammates, and they had a huge role in Bowden Wyatt’s early success.
Not only did UT go 10-0 in the regular season, 10-1 overall in 1956, but they also went 6-3-1 with those two in 1955. With Majors as a graduate assistant and Johnson as an All-American, they went 8-3 and finished in the top 20 in 1957.
After both quit playing, they went their separate ways for a while. Majors climbed the coaching ranks as an assistant, winning a national championship under Frank Broyles with the Arkansas Razorbacks, before taking over the Iowa State Cyclones in 1968, his first head coaching job.
According to his bio on UTSports, Johnson served in the U.S. Army for two years his college days and then as a member of the Tennessee National Guard for six years, earning the rank of first lieutenant. He then went into banking and farming in his hometown.
So while Johnson was rising as a community leader in Sparta, Majors was rising as a head coach. At the time, the Vols had a bit of a renaissance by entering a new era under Doug Dickey and then Bill Battle, winning two SEC titles in three years from 1967 to 1969.
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In 1972, Johnson became a member of the university’s athletics board just as the program was about to begin its slide. One year later Majors took over the Pittsburgh Panthers, where would have his greatest success, winning anational championship and coaching a Heisman Trophy winner in Tony Dorsett in 1976, two things that just barely eluded him 20 years earlier as a player.
All of this laid the foundation for them to reunite, and Johnson was on the athletics board when Tennessee football hired Majors to return in 1977. We all know the story of the next 15 years. A rough early period turned around in the mid-1980s, and the Vols became a national powerhouse once again, winning three SEC titles from 1985 to 1991.
Then, in 1992, Majors was forced out after a three-game losing streak, replaced by his assistant, Fulmer, who had filled in for him when he had open-heart surgery early in the year en route to a 3-0 start. The infamous alleged coup is said to name Johnson, along with Dickey, who was then athletic director, and Fulmer, according to an article by Patrick Brown of GoVols247 from 2017.
Whatever happened, we know that Fulmer took over with Johnson on board, and he helped take Tennessee football to the next level. Johnson stayed on the board through 1996, when members of Majors’ final recruiting class were seniors.
Looking at that timeline, it’s safe to say that everything affecting UT from 1954 to 1996 came with the involvement of Johnson and Majors. The two were together for four SEC titles and the emergence of the program into a national power.
Not only was 1996 Johnson’s final year on the board, it was also Majors’ final year as a head coach. He had returned to Pitt for four years. The next two years after that, UT won back to back SEC Championships and a national championship in 1998. They also were in the midst of the greatest run of the modern era, going 45-5 from 1995 to 1998.
You could attribute that epic run of the 1990s to a foundation that Majors and Johnson helped build. Since then, the program has been on a long, downward slide, and they’re still trying to recreate that era.
Regardless of how things ended in 1992, both had a major impact Tennessee football, and their efforts should never be overlooked. These are two of the greatest legends on Rocky Top. May Johnson rest in peace with his former teammate and partner who helped him built up the Vols.