Volosaurus rex

For GreenTexan13 and others who may be interested in more substantive data on the 1975 game, I ran across this retrospective article (http://www.chattanoogan.com/2015/11/11/312400/Remembering-North-Texas-Victory-Over.aspx). Pertinent, game-specific excerpts include the following: "North Texas was coached by Hayden Fry, a Marine veteran and later the successful coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes. . . . Coach Fry said after the Tennessee game that he had actually interviewed for the Tennessee opening after the 1963 season with Tennessee athletic director Bob Woodruff, who had been his head coach when he played quarterback at Baylor. Doug Dickey, another former Woodruff player, but at Florida, was hired instead. Coach Fry also had two sons who played for North Texas in 1975. Tennessee in 1975 was 3-2 coming into the North Texas game. The Vols had enjoyed impressive wins over Maryland, Auburn and LSU, but had lost to UCLA in Los Angeles early in the season. The week before the North Texas game, they had also lost 30-7 to a good Alabama team under coach Paul “Bear” Bryant at Birmingham’s Legion Field. . . . At the time of the Tennessee game, North Texas was 3-4. It had been trounced by Oklahoma State and lost convincingly to San Diego State, but had barely lost to both Memphis and Mississippi State. So this team from Denton, Texas, was at least a competitive team. The Mean Green had decided to start their third-string quarterback, Glen Ray, against Tennessee. Besides guiding the team as quarterback, the Nebraska transfer would also do an old-fashioned quick kick. The Vols . . . went out to a 7-0 lead on a short dive by [running back Stanley] Morgan early in the second quarter. But the fact that the Tennessee score came after two missed field goals by North Texas’ Iseed Khoury of Israel showed that a tough contest was ahead for the Vols Tennessee later had the ball again in the second quarter, but quarterback Gary Roach did not see defensive end Jimmy Burkholder and pitched right into his hands at the Vols 8-yard line. North Texas running back Sears Woods than scored the touchdown to help tie the game. On the subsequent kickoff, Burkholder hit Tennessee’s Jeff Moore, who fumbled. After a recovery by Bruce Bell, Woods again scored from short distance to put North Texas up 14-7 at the half. According to the news reports, the Vols were booed as they left the field before intermission. After a tense-filled and back-and-forth second half, Tennessee late in the fourth quarter finally managed to reach the end zone, which in those days was decorated with the team’s name and not checkerboards. With 4:25 remaining, a Wallace-to-John Murphy pass from two yards cut the North Texas lead to 14-13. . . . Thinking the Vols might have time to get the ball back, Coach Battle called for the tying one-point kick. The armchair coaches in the stands disagreed, and many Big Orange fans booed the decision as Jimmy Gaylor kicked the extra point. And then the unthinkable happened. Woods – who would rush for 121 yards that game, but less than 500 yards for the entire season -- took the subsequent kickoff, faked out safetyman Billy Arbo, and went 98 yards for the go-ahead touchdown. That would prove to be the difference, and the Vols suffered a shocking 21-14 defeat. In a game in which many Vol players were injured, their pride was damaged even more. . . . . North Texas would win out that year, while Tennessee would finish the season 7-5. The Vols would not go to a bowl for the first time since the 1964 season, although they did have a season-ending victory at Hawaii in early December." Note: Looking at this box score (https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1876&dat=19751025&id=hHMsAAAAIBAJ&sjid=-csEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5618,4900328&hl=en), Tennessee held an advantage in total offense of 469-230 yards but turned the ball over five times, including fumbles at their own 11- and 21-yard lines, respectively, which North Texas capitalized on for touchdowns. Neyland Maxims violated by Tennessee in this loss: "1. The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win. 2. Play for and make the breaks and when one comes your way - SCORE".

By the way, seeing your thread, "Billboard anyone?", reminded me of a story from one of the darkest six-week periods in Tennessee football history. The 1988 team began that season 0-6 and was outscored 211-98. Ken Donahue, architect of the 35-7 victory over Miami in the 1986 Sugar Bowl, was fired mid-season. The following account is excerpted from a story published in the Chicago Tribune (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1988-10-05/sports/8802040979_1_athletic-director-doug-dickey-tennessee-football-vols/2): "You can feel the big chill that`s gripping the hearts of Tennessee football fans in the wake of an 0-5 start, the worst in the school`s history. The latest and cruelest blow came Saturday, when Washington State rolled up 618 yards, the most ever surrendered by a Tennessee football team, in administering a 52-24 thrashing to the Volunteers. . . . It meant enough to Nashville sportscaster Duncan Stewart that he has been living on a billboard for two weeks, vowing not to come down until the Vols win a game. Unfortunately, he proved no more adroit than his favorite football team, falling off a ladder over the weekend and injuring an ankle. But he`s still standing his ground, so to speak. Stewart is sleeping on the ground under the billboard until the ankle is well enough to allow him to climb back to his perch. Another Volunteer fan, Joe Grant, of nearby Wartburg, has climbed atop a Deli-Mart store to wait for the first Tennessee victory. The Vols are off this week, and if they don`t beat Alabama Oct. 15, the entire population of Tennessee may be living on rooftops before long." I don't know how long Grant maintained his vigil, but Duncan Stewart went the distance, finally coming down from the billboard after a 38-25 victory over Memphis. Hopefully, your turnaround will be as quick and dramatic as that of the 1988-89 Vols. The 1988 team finished that season with five consecutive wins. Tennessee finished 11-1 the following year, including a 31-27 victory over Arkansas in the Cotton Bowl, and was ranked 5th in both polls.

My earliest memories of Big Orange football are, vaguely, the 1965 Bluebonnet Bowl and, more clearly, the 1966 Gator Bowl. 1967 was the first year that I followed Tennessee football on a game-to-game basis. Strangely my memories of that season are far clearer than those associated with the '75 season. Perhaps that is attributable to the psychological tendency to magnify the glory years and suppress more painful memories. I can tell you that was a decent North Texas team, at least in terms of its record (7-4), vs. a Tennessee team that was rapidly declining due to Bill Battle's inability to recruit SEC-caliber athletes. In any event, give me a little time and I will collate the memories of Tennessee fans who were there for that game. If you want to thoroughly peruse the appropriate thread, here is the link: http://www.volnation.com/forum/tennessee-vols-football/249205-north-texas-beat-vols-time-met.html. (1) "We finished 7-5 against a very easy schedule. We also lost that year to a 6-5 Ole Miss and a 7-4 Vandy. Still we had no business losing to North Texas. We made their year and their fans probably still talk about that game." (2) "It's hard to believe that Bill Battle wasn't fired after 1975. I remember an interview with Battle where he described the game unfolding a lot like Memphis '96. We could move the ball with ease between the 20's but kept coming away without points in the red zone (turnovers, missed fg's, stopped on downs). He said that he even got a sympathy call from Bear Bryant the next day. LOL!" (3) "They had a really good year, but it was still a monumental upset. . . . North Texas couldn't beat Memphis that year because they couldn't stop Memphis's QB, Kippy Brown." (4) "Bill Battle's drop off was epic. With Doug Dickey's recruits, he was consistently a 10 game winner. See his first three seasons. He managed 8 wins in his 4th season, thanks primarily to Condredge Holloway, Haskell Stanback and barefoot kicker Ricky Townsend. Battle's contacts were the same as the Bear's and he couldn't beat out Bryant for the top recruits. I was a kid, but I remember that the fans reacted to that 7-5 record the way we reacted to Dooley's records. The next year he was 5-5 after losing to Kentucky, 7-0, yes Kentucky. By then, the moving van had been sent. Beating Vandy 13-10 was simply a nice parting gift." (5) "It was my freshman year and I was at the game. They ran a kickoff back for a TD. We had first and goal inside the 10 once and no kidding, we ended up at 4th and goal from the 41 after a series of miscues. I think we punted but I don't remember for sure. As was typical in every game that year, even though we had Mickey Marvin on the line, we couldn't pass block anyone all year. Randy Wallace was the QB and he often got swarmed after just a few steps back. Often he just chucked it toward Larry Seivers and he would just out jump everyone for the ball. Disclaimer: Actually yardages and such may not be totally accurate due to old age." (6) "I was at everyone of those [1975] games and left Neyland chanting "Battle's Gotta Go!!!" after the NTS game. Depressing year." (7) "The [North Texas] KO return was by Sears Woods. I will never forget it." (8) "That game was my first visit to Neyland Stadium. Not quite the experience I was looking for on my first visit. I was 14 and all you heard that day was Johnny Majors was coming home."

Actually, both the '96 Florida and '98 Tennessee teams owe Nebraska an ironic debt of gratitude. The whippings that both teams took at the hands of the Cornhuskers toughened them and prepared them for national championship runs the following year. I have no frame of reference to contextualize the collective angst that you guys bear toward Rick Villareal, but I do know that the interests of Tennessee's athletic department were served well for roughly forty years by two men with mixed Tennessee and Florida allegiances: Bob Woodruff and Doug Dickey.

By the way, you guys really should drop by Vol Nation. You could give some of our whiny, acid-tongued forum contributors a superb and much-needed example of how to handle adversity with grace.

Thanks for the context, oldguystudent. That does clarify things. It sounds like your former head coach and Lane Kiffin are cut from the same cloth. During his one season at Tennessee, Kiffin never embraced Tennessee's tradition. Instead, he made it rather clear that he wanted to transform UT into USC east and went so far as to prominently display large images of USC players, such as Reggie Bush, in high-traffic areas of Tennessee's football complex.

Of course, they won one under Steve Spurrier (1996) and two under Urban Meyer (2006, 2008). They also were absolutely massacred in the 1996 Orange Bowl by one of Nebraska's greatest teams, 62-24. We enjoyed that game almost as much as our Citrus Bowl victory (20-14) over Eddie George and Ohio State.

For the sake of full disclosure, MeanGreenTexan accurately characterized the context of my awareness of your loss to Portland State. Because you are on our current schedule, I have paid more attention to the course of North Texas' season this year than I ordinarily would. I was not aware that the Portland State game was your homecoming; that must have made it particularly difficult to stomach. In this era of what I call "slide-rule" football, where the pigskin moves up and down the field with hardly a semblance of defense, pinball-like scores have become fairly commonplace; the average fan may well have looked at that score and thought, "good day offensively for Portland State," and then dismissed it without further consideration. Incidentally, I would strongly advise Mean Green fans not to attend the Florida game at the "Swamp." As nonconference opponents, you probably would not be subjected to the full arsenal of their venom, but Tennessee fans who attended games there have reported a very warm reception, as in being splashed with cups of urine. I do not believe that Florida fans share our sense of hospitality toward visitors. They have enjoyed a lot of success over the last twenty-five years but have a "Johnny-come-lately" attitude when it comes to their place in the history of college football. By comparison, the Tennessee-Alabama rivalry is fiercely contested but predicated on decades of respect, due to the fact that General Neyland, Wallace Wade, Frank Thomas, Bear Bryant, Johnny Majors, and Phil Fulmer all viewed this clash of orange vs. crimson as the annual measuring stick of their respective programs. Florida is the program that we truly despise and, more than anything else, it stems from the fact that they have never learned to win with grace and lose with dignity. Incidentally, for what it is worth, my brother encountered Syracuse fans at Neyland during our 2001 game with the Orangemen. They commented on how graciously they had been greeted in Knoxville and contrasted it sharply to the rude reception they received at the 1999 Orange Bowl, when they played the Reptilian Horde. So, Mean Green fans, be forewarned about visiting the Swamp.

Harry, thanks for including the checkerboard photo of Neyland Stadium. I wish that the Mean Green contingent could experience that; it is a new, probably once-annual, tradition established in the aftermath of Tennessee's visit to Oklahoma's stadium in 2014.

His offense gave our defense fits for the better part of three quarters. And his passing attack was, by far, the best we have faced all season. However, he seems to work from the "I-don't-care-about-defense-so-long-as-we-outscore-the-opposition" attitude. We ran for 399 yards and threw for 205 against them in a 59-30 victory. I realize that all fan bases ultimately boil coaching success down to wins and losses, but, historically, has North Texas, during good times, been run- or pass-oriented and has your program been offensively or defensively oriented during those periods of success?

Smallvol#1, I don't recall whether our paths have crossed previously. Do you visit Vol Nation regularly or do you more commonly frequent other Tennessee message boards? By the way, guys, I believe that smallvol#1 would agree that, as Tennessee fans, we consider the historical balance sheet between the states of Tennessee and Texas to have been paid in full with the "gifting" of one Greenville, Texas native, Robert Reese Neyland, to the University of Tennessee.

No, I was quite aware of that fact. I see no point in kicking an opponent while they are down, certainly not one whom we are playing for only the second time in 40 years. Now, if a snobbish Florida or Alabama fan was to come on our cyberturf and conduct himself in a disrespectful manner, that would be a different story. The fact that you guys have stood by the Mean Green through such a dismal season and actually managed to maintain some sense of humor, as evidenced by some of these threads, is, in itself, worthy of praise.

If this season has not already drained them of their collective pride, 'tis far better to "fight tooth and nail." There would be no redeeming benefits whatsoever to be remembered as the modern-day equivalent of Cumberland College who lost to Georgia Tech by the mind-numbing score of 222-0 in 1916.

Thanks for the welcome, Harry. Under the circumstances, your collective attitude is entirely understandable. I rarely visit message boards of our opponents, but, after perusing the "Update: North Texas @ Tennessee 11/14" thread and learning of the intentions of some of your fans to attend this game, despite the manner in which this season has played out thus far, I felt compelled to pay my respects. Only hard-core true fans willingly choose to subject themselves to that kind of experience and the associated financial cost of attendance. So, again, my hat's off to those Mean Green fans who will dot the bleachers of Neyland Stadium Saturday. Although our recent experience pales in magnitude to what you are currently going through, we can empathize to some degree with your plight. This is the first year in which we have truly been competitive with our primary rivals in quite some time. Another excellent recruiting class will fully extract us from the worst talent deficit Tennessee's football program has experienced in the last 40 years.

Harry, please do both fan bases a favor and spare us further exposure to the "work" of John Adams, resident "Sultan of Sarcasm" for the Knoxville News Sentinel. As the week progresses, I am sure that you will be able to find more respectful and balanced coverage of our forthcoming game from Patrick Brown, columnist for the Chattanooga Times-Free Press (see http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/sports/college/tennessee/). Most Tennessee fans positively despise John Adams. Indeed, the phrase "with friends like him, who needs enemies?" exemplifies Adams' coverage of Tennessee athletics over the years.