26-15-12 (10-13-1 SIAA); 1 SIAA Championship
The first head coach to see real success with Tennessee football, Zora G. Clevenger is one of Rocky Top’s greatest legends. A College Football Hall of Fame halfback for the Indiana Hoosiers from 1900 to 1903, Clevenger took over the Vols after three years at Nebraska Wesleyan.
Like most coaches at the time, Clevenger led the baseball and basketball programs too. He inherited a team at UT that had gone 1-6-2 and 3-5-1 the previous two years. However, Clevenger came in and installed the Straight T. He was the first career coach hired by the Vols, one who wasn’t just a player using this job as a pit-stop.
In 1911, Clevenger went 3-4-2 at UT. However, he got better each of the next three years, going 4-4 in 1912 and 6-3-1 in 1913. Still, it seemed like this team couldn’t beat Vanderbilt no matter how much better they were, and indeed, they had never beaten the ‘Dores entering 1914.
That changed that year. The Vols, entering the season with lots of expectations, had their first real championship season and one of what have been only four undefeated seasons, three since the Spanish-American War, in school history. They went 9-0 and won the SIAA, finally beating Vanderbilt in the process, winning that game 15-13 at Dudley Field.
Rocky Top roared off to a hot start that year, beating the Carson-Newman Eagles 89-0, King 55-3, Clemson 27-0 and the Louisville Cardinals 66-0. They had also beaten Chattanooga 67-0 and Kentucky 23-6. Simply put, they dominated everybody on the slate.
It’s one of the most legendary years in school history. Only Alabama, Vanderbilt and Sewanee didn’t lose by more than three possessions, and Sewanee, losing 14-7, joined Vanderbilt in making the game close. Still, the Vols dominated the year.
That season alone puts Clevenger up here, especially given what he inherited, and despite going 4-4 the next year before leaving for Kansas State, he left enough for John R. Bender to win the SIAA in 1916. His coaching elevated the Vols to national interest and made the school committed to Tennessee football, and given how he left it, he did a great job in general.