Tennessee football: Ranking all 25 full-time head coaches in Vols history

49-29-4 (29-23-4 SEC); 1 SEC Championship

After Harvey Robinson couldn’t maintain the success that Robert Neyland had overseen with Tennessee football in the early 1950s, Neyland had to make the difficult decision to fire his protege. However, determined to keep the Vols in the single wing, he brought in another one of his proteges, Bowden Wyatt, who was an All-American end for him in 1938.

The hiring of Wyatt at the time was like hiring Johnny Majors in 1977. He was a UT All-American and legend who led them to a national championship and had seen great success as a coach. In six years with the Wyoming Cowboys, Wyatt won two Skyline Six Championships, including a 10-0 season in 1950 in which his team won the Gator Bowl and finished in the top 15.

Wyatt followed that up with two seasons coaching the Arkansas Razorbacks, and when he was hired by UT, he had just won the Southwest Conference and finished in the top 10 with an 8-3 record. Simply put, he came with as much hype coaching as he did as a player.

Largely thanks to Neyland’s recruiting and Robinson still doing things right off the field, Wyatt lived up to that hype early. He led UT to a 6-3-1 record in 1955, and in 1956, he led them to one of their most legendary seasons ever, going 10-0 in the regular season, finishing 10-1 and ranked No. 1 in both polls, and having Majors earn Heisman Trophy runner-up.

That makes it ironic that the hiring of Majors, an All-American himself in 1956, was so similar 20 years later. Anyway, Wyatt went 8-3 the next year, won the Gator Bowl to beat Bear Bryant in his last game with the Texas A&M Aggies, and finished in the top 20.

However, the single-wing, which Neyland was committed to, was falling behind. As a result, the times were passing Wyatt by, and his last five years included two losing seasons and no bowl appearances. There were some highlights, like three top 20 wins despite going 4-6 in 1958, the stop to beat the No. 1 ranked LSU Tigers and a 6-2-2 season and top 20 finish in 1960.

For the most part, though, Tennessee football was clinging to an era that was clearly long gone, one they should have left years before. Wyatt’s early success and his memorable wins still put him high on this list, but him overseeing that downfall hurts him quite a bit.