KNOXVILLE — University of Tennessee football is rich in tradition and Vols Wire will explore the program by examining each head coach’s tenure.
This installment will look back on the time Johnny Majors was the head coach on Rocky Top.
Majors was a hot commodity following the 1976 season when he guided the University of Pittsburgh to a perfect 12-0 record and the national championship. With the Panthers, he coached Tony Dorsett, one of the game’s all-time great running backs.
Dorsett, who won the Heisman Trophy at Pittsburgh, went on to enjoy a stellar NFL career with the Dallas Cowboys and Denver Broncos.
Majors, one of UT’s all-time greats as a single-wing tailback, replaced Bill Battle as head coach of the Volunteers. Battle never went through a losing season in seven years in Knoxville, struggled against the likes of Alabama and Auburn, thus he never won a Southeastern Conference championship. A 6-5 record in 1976 allowed for Majors to return home.
Majors, who also coached at Iowa State, had his own struggles early in his stop at Tennessee.
In his first two seasons in Big Orange Country, Majors compiled a sub-par record of 9-12-1 before going 7-5 during the 1979 campaign. In 1980, the Volunteers went 5-6 before Majors recorded his second winning season with the Vols in 1981, going 8-4.
After a rough start, Majors went on to lead the Big Orange to three SEC championships (1985, 1989 and 1990).
Majors, a who made the College Football Hall of Fame as a player, went 116-62-8 at his alma mater. He is a Legend of the Sun Bowl, a member of the Chick-fil-A/Peach Bowl Hall of Fame and the Sugar Bowl Hall of Fame.
His number, 45, is retired at Tennessee, where he was a prolific runner and passer. With the Vols, he also punted and returned kicks.
But he was forced to resign in 1992 and later returned to Pittsburgh as head coach and later an athletic administrator.
He had a brief career with the Canadian Football League’s Montreal Alouttes before returning to Rocky Top to begin his coaching career as a graduate assistant under his mentor Bowden Wyatt (a College Football Hall of Famer as both a player and coach).
He was later a backfield coach for the Vols and served as a defensive backs coach at Mississippi State. Majors also served as an assistant to the legendary Frank Broyles at Arkansas.