Tennessee football: Comparing Josh Heupel’s fourth year of career to other Vols head coaches
Scouting Report. Wake Forest Baptists. player. Pick Analysis. 1922. George LeVene. 13. 889
3-5-2
Now we’re dealing with somebody whose fourth year was at a program after Tennessee football. George LeVene helped restore the Vols in the mid-1900s. From the return from the lost years in 1896, when they went undefeated, to Hubert Fisher’s first year in 1902, the Vols had never suffered a losing season and were starting to generate interest.
However, they then had four straight losing seasons from 1903 to 1906 with three different head coaches and went 1-6-2 in James DePree’s second season, 1906. LeVene came to UT in 1907 after two years as a player for the Penn Quakers, and he immediately turned things around.
Rocky Top went 7-2-1 in 1907 and then 7-2 in 1908, their two best years since those 1896 and 1897 seasons. However, LeVene then went 1-6-2 in 1909 and was gone after that. He returned to Penn as an assistant under John Heisman in 1920 after the war.
In 1922, LeVene took over the Wake Forest Baptists, now the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, and his only wins were over Atlantic Christian, the Elon Phoenix and the Hampden–Sydney Tigers. He was gone by 1923, replaced by Hank Garrity, just as Wake Forest joined the Southern Conference, where Tennessee football was at the time.