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We Cover New Strategies and Rules That Shaped the 1950s SEC · Sports History Network

• 1:46
  Come on, boys.
• 1:46
  November 30, 1957, 45, 000 people sat in the cold at Legion Field and watched Auburn Barry Alabama 40 to nothing on the scoreboard.
• 1:55
  And only one game in the renewed series have been more lopsided.
• 1:59
  Alabama's 55 to nothing win nine years earlier that afternoon decided everything at once.
• 2:05
  Auburn won his first Southeastern Conference championship, and in the national title that year, an Alabama coach, J.B.
• 2:12
  whitworth, coached his last game, his contract expiring at midnight that night.
• 2:17
  And three days later, Alabama hired Bear Bryant.
• 2:22
  Now, how did eight different schools win the SEC in 10 years?
• 2:25
  And why has the conference never done that again?
• 2:28
  To answer it, we rewind 10 seasons to a league where the answer to who controls the SEC changed almost every fall.
• 2:38
  Now, from 1950 to 1959, eight different schools wonder shared the Southeast Conference title.
• 2:44
  Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia Tech, Alabama, ole Miss, Auburn, LSU and Georgia.
• 2:49
  Seven different men.
• 2:51
  1 AP SEC Coach of the Year at seven different schools.
• 2:55
  41 National Championships while Kentucky and Ole Miss were named the champions by smaller selectors.
• 3:01
  And one champion won it all while banned from playing even in any bowl games.
• 3:06
  Now you can't explain that a decade without the man who spent most of the time in it.
• 3:11
  The athletic director's office Robert Nealon coached Tennessee in three separate stretches, twice interrupted by the army they did during the war seasons.
• 3:22
  He won 173 games and four national championships and went 125 and 2 against Alabama.
• 3:28
  His 1951 Tennessee team went 101 and won a national championship.
• 3:33
  And it was the last full expression of his football.
• 3:37
  The single wing, the kicking game, field position and a defense that treated a touchdown like a personal failure.
• 3:44
  Neyland was coach of the year that year.
• 3:47
  After 1952 season, he stayed on as athletic director for the Vols, and his system walked out the door with his players.
• 3:55
  And in October 1954, Sports Illustrator published Herman Hickman's piece that said Neyland's boys.
• 4:03
  Hickman named them.
• 4:04
  You know these players that went on to coach Bobby Dodd at Georgia Tech, Bowden Wyatt at Arkansas, Murray Wormath at Minnesota, Bob Woodruff at Florida.
• 4:14
  And Harvey Robinson was still holding on to that Tennessee job.
• 4:18
  Now the pedigree was exact.
• 4:20
  Dodd had played quarterback from 1928 to 1930, and Tennessee went 271 and 2 during that stret that he started.
• 4:28
  Woodruff Attacko from 1936 to 38 had been hired by Florida in 1950 at the age of 34 on a seven year deal worth 17 grand.
• 4:37
  And that was $5,000 more than the college president was making at that time.
• 4:43
  So pretty outstanding number by any means there.
• 4:47
  Wyatt had captained the 1938 team that went 11 0, shut out eight opponents that year.
• 4:52
  They outscored everybody 293 to 16 and had beaten Oklahoma 17 to nothing in Orange Bow in Tennessee's first bowl game and first bowl game win ever.
• 5:03
  Now, Johnny Vaught had no Tennessee connections in him.
• 5:07
  He was a Fort Worth guard who captained the TCU's 100 and 1 Southwest Championship in 1932, and he coached the line under the Red drew on a 2 and 7 Ole Miss team in 1946.
• 5:20
  The next year 47, he was promoted and as head coach he went 92 and won the first SEC title in school history with a quarterback named Charlie Connerly.
• 5:30
  Now Conroy had completed 133 passes for 18 touchdowns that season, both national records, and finished fourth in the Heisman race, running a modified Notre Dame box with Connerly at tailback.
• 5:43
  Then Vought discarded it and installed the split tee he had learned from Don Faro, Missouri in 1941.
• 5:51
  The splits were widened to three feet.
• 5:53
  The quarterback worked under center and read one unblocked defender.
• 5:57
  Vought made the change because Ole Miss could not line up and overpower Tennessee or Georgia Tech, who had much bigger linemen than his team had.
• 6:06
  From 1950 to 1959, Ole Miss went 80, 21 and 5, and Vought won the SEC again in 1954 and 1955 and was Coach of the Year both seasons, four awards and nine seasons counting 1947 and 48.
• 6:21
  And his 1959 team went 101 with eight shutouts and gave up 21 points all year, but lost the 7 to 3 game to LSU, then beat those same Tigers 21 nothing in the sugar Bowl.
• 6:35
  The team was named the national champions by several selectors and was later honored as the SEC team of the Decade.
• 6:42
  The Neyland quarterback who refused to coach like Neyland was waiting in Atlanta.
• 6:48
  Bobby Dodd, who had been hired off of the Tennessee campus by William Alexander in 1930 just before he had even graduated.
• 6:56
  He waited seasons and took over in 1945.
• 6:59
  For 22 years he was a coach down there at Georgia Tech.
• 7:03
  Now he kept the football defense first, willing to punt on third down for field position.
• 7:10
  And he didn't keep not only keep these methods, he also instituted some things himself.
• 7:15
  No hitting in practice.
• 7:17
  It was short, organized workouts.
• 7:19
  When the teams did get together to practice, he started games without players who were late coming from the laboratory or at an engineering school.
• 7:27
  He Kept men on scholarship as long as they were moving towards a degree.
• 7:34
  From 1951 to 1953, Georgia Tech went 31 straight games without a loss.
• 7:39
  So the players responded to these methods.
• 7:41
  In 1952, he went 120 and won the SEC.
• 7:45
  They beat Ole Miss in a Sugar bowl and they were named the champions by the INS.
• 7:50
  Although both major polls put Michigan State first, Tech won the SEC in 51 and 52.
• 7:57
  Dodd was the coach of the year and six straight Bull wins came in the first half of the decade.
• 8:02
  He finished 165 wins, 64 losses and eight ties.
• 8:07
  The Atlanta writers called it Dodd's luck and Coach Bryant said he would rather face any other coach opposite him, but not Bobby Dodd.
• 8:17
  Dodd also fought the league twice.
• 8:20
  For years he refused to take Tech into Mississippi and he was fought the conference over scholarship rules that penalize him for keeping players for four years while others over signed and ran off upperclassmen.
• 8:33
  He lost that fight.
• 8:35
  In 1964, Georgia Tech left the SEC.
• 8:39
  Now while Dodd was held in Atlanta, Bear Bryant reached his peak where no one expected it.
• 8:46
  And Alabama fell into the pit of its history.
• 8:49
  Now, Coach Bryant was at Kentucky from 1946-53.
• 8:54
  That's right, he was with the Wildcats, where he went 60, 23 and 5 in the school's first Bull trip and first SEC title in 1950 with an 111 record under Bear Bryant.
• 9:06
  And on January 1, 1951, Kentucky beat number one undefeated Oklahoma 137 in a Sugar bowl to end the Sooner's 31 great game streak.
• 9:18
  Bryant was a coach of the year 1950, but he went 0 for 7 against Robert Nealon's teams.
• 9:25
  And after 1953 he was asked for his release.
• 9:29
  He wanted to leave there because Kentucky was a basketball school and the head of their basketball team was a guy named Adolph Rupp.
• 9:38
  You know, the Adolph Rupp who was not leaving anytime soon.
• 9:42
  So Bryant decided to pack his bags and he went to Texas A and M.
• 9:46
  And he took more than 100 players with him to Junction, Texas and came back with a fraction.
• 9:53
  He went 19 and won the Southwest Conference by 1956 though.
• 9:59
  And while he was gone, Alabama won the strangest title ever.
• 10:02
  In 1953, under coach Harold Drew, the Tide went 63 and 3 overall and and 403 in the conference.
• 10:11
  Yeah, you got it.
• 10:11
  Four wins, zero tie losses and three ties.
• 10:16
  No SEC loss.
• 10:18
  So that's what gave them the nod for the Crown for the SEC title.
• 10:21
  But then they lost 28 to 6 to Rice, almost embarrassed in the Cotton bowl that year.
• 10:27
  Then came Coach Whitworth, an Alabama graduate.
• 10:31
  His teams went 22, 271 and at Oklahoma and A and M.
• 10:37
  But he cut his seniors, including Bart Starr.
• 10:39
  Alabama went 0 and 10 in 1955 and still has was the last winless season in Alabama history.
• 10:47
  Then following that up, they had a 271 record two years in a row.
• 10:52
  A total of four wins, 24 losses, two ties and a 14 game losing streak.
• 10:58
  The worst three year record in Alabama history arrived in the middle of the most competitive stretch an SEC decade has ever had.
• 11:07
  Now Neyland answered by bringing in his own captain home and then the title started moving every year.
• 11:14
  He dismissed Harvey Robinson to coach Neyland after two seasons and brought back Wyatt.
• 11:19
  Now Wyatt had spent six years at Wyoming with two Skyline titles and then Arkansas was where Wyatt went with 3 and 7 record in 1953 and Southwest title in 1954.
• 11:34
  He brought almost his entire Arkansas staff to Knoxville in 1955 and his first team went 6, 3 and 1.
• 11:41
  Not too shabby.
• 11:42
  His second though went 10 and 1, won the SEC and finished number two in the final AP poll.
• 11:48
  Wyatt was the national coach of the year in 1956, 18 years after coaching a kneeland team to that great undefeated season in 1957.
• 11:58
  Auburn started the preseason ranked 15th and they dropped out without playing as they opened up a Tennessee and beat number eight Wyatt club seven to nothing.
• 12:08
  And then when all the rest of their games they went 100 with a defense that gave up just 28 points all season.
• 12:15
  The 40 to nothing burial of Alabama on November 30th was Auburn's first SEC title and an AP National Championship team.
• 12:24
  But there wasn't no bowl for the Auburn Tigers.
• 12:27
  They were on probation was Auburn for improper payments to recruits.
• 12:31
  The postseason ban was still in force at this time and Ohio State took the coaches poll.
• 12:37
  Two national champions the writers pick sat home in January for paying players.
• 12:44
  And Shug Jordan was now the coach of the year for twice in five seasons in 1958.
• 12:51
  Paul Dietzel at LSU since 1955.
• 12:55
  He had been there split his roster into a white team and a go team and the the Chinese Bandits defense.
• 13:03
  Now he used the whole roster and it became the most discussed innovation in sport.
• 13:09
  With Billy Cannon, LSU was 11 0, won the national championship 7 and nothing over Clemson in the Sugar Bowl.
• 13:16
  And Dietzel was the coach of the year after 11 wins in three seasons.
• 13:21
  Now three straight years, three different schools, two national titles, Tennessee, Auburn, LSU and none held a second year.
• 13:30
  Now why is that?
• 13:31
  That brings us to the payoff in 1959 when Bryant finally came back home into the SEC.
• 13:39
  Now defending champion LSU wrote a 19 game winning streak after Cannon's 89 yard punt return Beetle missed 7 to 3 and they were ranked number one.
• 13:49
  Cannon headed to the Heisman Trophy podium and on November 7th in Knoxville, Wyatt's Tennessee team won 14 13, stopping Canna Cannon on a two point conversion that gave the Vols a win.
• 14:04
  It ended the longest streak in LSU history on a goal line stand and Tennessee then lost its last three games to finish 5:4:1.
• 14:12
  Cannon still won the Heisman, but LSU did not repeat because of that loss.
• 14:17
  One week later, Georgia beat Auburn 1413 in Athens for the title game on Fran Tarkington's touchdown pass with 30 seconds left.
• 14:27
  See, he did it in college two folks Wally Bus, coaching Georgia since 1939, went from 10th in the SEC in 1958 to a 101 record and beat Missouri in the Orange bowl for the 59 season and the final
• 14:42
  turn Bryant left Texas A and m after a 25 and 142 record for the program that won four games in three years because he said his mother called.
• 14:55
  They went to 5, 4 and 1 in 1958, 72 and 2 and 59, beat Auburn for the first time since 1953 and returned to a bowl game after a five year absence.
• 15:06
  He was coach of the year in 1959, nine years after winning it all at Kentucky and still two years from his first SC title at Alabama which would not occur until 1961.
• 15:17
  So 10 seasons, eight champions, seven coaches of the Year titles at Tennessee, Georgia Tech, Auburn and lsu.
• 15:24
  And then Bryant came back home into the SEC in a balance of power to began to change now.
• 15:30
  Thanks for joining us today.
• 15:31
  You can find more football history at your portal of the Gridiron history pigskind dispatch.com make sure you visit our gridiron timeline not only for the 1950s decade in the SEC but for all of football for all leagues, all
• 15:45
  levels, college football pro and even some high school in there.
• 15:49
  Some there in our Gridiron Timeline series as well as our timelines by the day of the year.
• 15:55
  So we thank you for joining us today.
• 15:56
  Have a great Gridiron day.