Tennessee football: Black jerseys vs. Georgia will break a 100-year precedent

In 2009, Tennessee football wore black jerseys against the South Carolina Gamecocks. It was the first time in 89 years that they had worn black jerseys. Those had been defunct from the time Neyland Stadium opened, then as Shields-Watkins field, back in 1921.

UT then didn’t wear them again for 12 years until earlier this year, when Josh Heupel brought out a new all-black uniform combination, once again facing South Carolina. The good news for the Vols is they won both games, 31-13 in 2009 and 45-20 earlier this year.

Now, Tennessee football is bringing them out again. The program announced on Twitter Thursday night that the all-black uniforms would be out when they host the No. 1 ranked Georgia Bulldogs Saturday afternoon.

With this move, the Vols are breaking another 100-year streak. They are wearing black jerseys against a team that’s not South Carolina, and they are doing it multiple times. Neither has happened since 1920.

Honesty, this could be a good omen. Rocky Top is 2-0 with these uniforms after all, and South Carolina was ranked when they beat them in 2009. Given the fact that both were blowout wins, the energy that comes with the uniforms certainly seems to have an effect on the players.

If you want to go more superstitious, black uniforms became synonymous with the Vols in 1911, and they wore them from 1911 to 1920. That was the decade that really propelled the program into the national spotlight pre-Robert Neyland.

Zora G. Clevenger took over in 1911, and in 1914 he led the program to a 9-0 record and its first conference title, as they won the SIAA. Oh, and they beat the Vanderbilt Commodores for the first time ever that year.

Two years later, John R. Bender led UT to another SIAA title with an 8-0-1 record. There was no official varsity team in 1917 or 1918 due to World War I, but Bender returned and led them to a 3-3-3 record in 1919 and then a 7-2 record in 1920.

M.B. Banks took over in 1921, as did play at Shields-Watkins Field, and UT joined the Southern Conference in 1922. The 1920s and early 1930s were a decade of changes, as Neyland came along in 1926, the orange jerseys became a thing in 1927 and the SEC was formed in 1933.

However, Tennessee football laid the foundation to be able to take part in all of that with what it did while wearing black jerseys during the 1910s. That they are bringing them back could be a sign of a new era once again.