University of Tennessee Athletics
FLASHBACK: Vols Top OU In '39 Orange Bowl
September 12, 2014 | Football
By Brian Rice
UTSports.com
When Robert Neyland took his Tennessee football team to Miami for the 1939 Orange Bowl, he didn't quite know what to expect from his team.
The Volunteers had already earned the program's first National Championship, having been crowned by the Dunkel, Litkenhouse, Boand, Houlgate and Poling services for a 10-0 regular season. Tennessee gave up just 6 points in SEC play, to LSU in Knoxville on homecoming, en route to outscoring conference foes 141-6 over seven games.
The final two games of the regular season were the finest performances for the team, defeating Kentucky 46-0 in Knoxville and Ole Miss 47-0 in Memphis.
Still, Neyland declared to reporters that he gave his team only an even chance against an Oklahoma team that entered on a similar 14-game win streak. The Sooners had given up 13 points all season, six each to Rice and Tulsa, and had outscored opponents 185-6.
The team took a two-week break before reconvening in a condition that Neyland found more than unsatisfactory. Bowl preparations were further slowed the week of Christmas by a cold outbreak that led team trainer Mickey O'Brien to send top players including quarterback George Cafego, halfbacks Bob Foxx and Sam Bartholomew and tackle Abe Shires home from practice. Guard Melvin Lampley spent much of bowl prep in the hospital with influenza.
O'Brien was so cautious with the star Cafego that he was held out of a scheduled appearance on a national radio show to receive his All-America award.
The Volunteers headed for Miami by train on Christmas Day, a nearly 23-hour journey for the 41 players, for a week of on-sight practices leading up to the matchup with the Sooners.
The unusually warm, even for Miami, weather that greeted UT led many players to declare themselves ready to return to Knoxville after the first practice at Miami High School. The change in scenery benefitted some of the ailing Vols. Though Neyland commented publicly that he was still concerned about the after effects of the illness that had run through the team, O'Brien declared the team to be "In as good shape as it is possible for a football team playing in a post-season game of this type to be."
The Vols found a crowd of 32,191 waiting for them at Orange Bowl Stadium and, though well undersized compared to their Sooner counterparts, used the speed and power that had defined them throughout the 1938 season to impose their will early.
One of many penalties on the day for Oklahoma backed the Sooner offense up to the 3-yard line in the first quarter. The punt that followed gave Tennessee a short field. Runs from Cafego, Leonard Coffman and Foxx moved the ball the 27 yards necessary for the game's first score, an 8-yard run from Foxx.
The Tennessee defense dominated play throughout the game, as had become its custom. UT played to the maxims that Neyland preached and played for and made the breaks. When a fumble came the Volunteers' way, they scored again. Babe Wood completed a pass to the OU 4-yard line, but a penalty thwarted the drive and UT settled for a Bowden Wyatt 32-yard field goal. The score moved the margin to 10-0 headed to halftime.
It was not a particularly clean game, with the teams combining for over 200 penalty yards, many from numerous incidents of "Slugging, kicking, heckling and wrangling with officials," as Knoxville Journal sports editor Tom Anderson wrote before noting that a press box consensus found Oklahoma to be the primary instigator. Indeed, OU tackle Gilford Duggan was ejected for instigating a fight with UT guard Ed Molinski, though Molinski was also escorted to the locker room for his role.
Tennessee continued to dominate play in the second half, though neither team managed a score in the third quarter. Wood capped a 73-yard drive with a 19-yard touchdown run. UT faced a late Oklahoma push that went all the way inside the Vols' 10, but preserved the win and the shutout, 17-0.
UT scored more points than OU had given up in the entire 1938 season. The Volunteers dominated the stat lines, outgaining the Sooners 260-94. The ground game was the key, 197 rushing yards for Tennessee, 25 for Oklahoma.
The win sparked UT to another impressive run in 1939, an undefeated, unscored upon regular season. Tennessee did not allow a point in a regular-season game from Nov. 5, 1938-Oct. 19, 1940. The stretch was a part of one of the great runs in Tennessee history. The Volunteers won 33 consecutive regular-season games from Nov. 25, 1937-Sept., 20, 1941.
