Third Saturday in October: Alabama-Tennessee Rivalry

 

 

CrimsonTideAlogo300px-UT_Volunteers_logo.svg

The Third Saturday in October can only mean one thing: the University of Alabama Crimson Tide (Tide) and the University of Tennessee Volunteers (Vols) are about to strap on the helmets extra tight in anticipation of another physical, blood-letting battle on the football field. One of the fiercest rivalries in the Deep South used to take place on the third Saturday in October but when the Southeastern Conference split the league into two divisions in 1992, the game began to gravitate among dates somewhere between the middle to late October. For decades Alabama and Tennessee fans have had a saying: Don’t get married on the third Saturday in October. Sports journalist Beano Cook added, “Don’t die on the third Saturday in October, since the preacher may not show up.”

Alabama officially leads the series 53-38-7. The National Collegiate Athletic Association NCAA) forced Alabama to forfeit the 1993 game, a 17-17 tie, and vacate the 2005 game, a 6-3 Alabama win, because of rules violations. The series has been marked by winning streaks on both sides, and generally, those were directly correlated to the side that had the College Football Hall of Fame coach at the time.  The first game in 1901 between the two schools ended in a 6-6 tie in Birmingham. From 1903 through 1913, Alabama forged an 8-1 record against Tennessee while holding the Vols scoreless. The series took a hiatus until 1928.

Alabama Hall of Fame coach Wallace Wade led the Tide to three national championships from 1925-1930 while Hall of Fame coach Robert Neyland, known as the General, began his tenure at Tennessee in 1926. The coaches became friends and agreed to re-start the series in 1928, a 15-13 University of Tennessee (UT) win. Neyland’s Vols won a tight 6-0 victory over Wade’s Tide in 1929 but Wade gained a measure of revenge with an 18-6 triumph on the way to the 1930 national championship. Wade left for Duke University after that memorable 1930 season and the series pendulum swung in Neyland’s and Tennessee’s favor. Neyland coached at Tennessee from 1926-1952, with the exceptions of 1935 and 1941-1945. His record against Alabama was 12-5-2.

Alabama won the 1935 game, 25-0. In that game, senior end Paul “Bear” Bryant played the entire contest with a broken leg. After the game, Bryant shrugged it off stating, “It was one little bone.”

Such toughness inspired the University of Kentucky to hire Bryant as its head coach in 1946. Kentucky played Neyland’s Volunteers seven times during Bryant’s period as coach, but the General outflanked the Bear winning five times, with no losses, and two ties. In his book Third Saturday in October, Al Browning stated that those losses to Neyland fueled Bryant’s intense desire to defeat Tennessee while serving as Alabama’s head coach.

Bryant took over the reins at Alabama in 1958 and coached there until his retirement after the 1982 season. The Hall of Fame coach swung the series pendulum back to Alabama. Bryant’s teams struggled against Tennessee from 1958-1960 as the Volunteers tallied a 2-0-1 record against the Bear. However, the Tide broke through in 1961 with a resounding 34-3 victory. After that game, Alabama trainer Jim Goostree, a UT graduate, started a tradition that continues today. Goostree dispensed cigars to the players and coaches to celebrate the victory. After every game since then, the winning team has broken out the cigars. The NCAA considers this practice a violation of its rules, so the winning team immediately reports itself afterwards.

Under Bryant, Alabama dominated the series with 16 wins, seven losses, and two ties and won 11 in a row from 1971 to 1981. The Bear used the games against Tennessee as a barometer for his teams. According to Browning, the Bear once declared, “You found out what kind of person you were when you played against Tennessee.”

From 1983 through 1991, Alabama won six of the nine games. Tennessee coach Johnny Majors beat the Bear in 1982 but proceeded to lose six out of the next eight, which directly led to his termination. The pendulum swung back to Tennessee when Hall of Famer Phillip Fulmer took over as coach in 1992.

Fulmer compiled an 11-5 record against the Tide, including the forfeited 1993 tie and the 2005 vacated Alabama win. During Fulmer’s tenure, the Vols won nine of 10 versus Alabama from 1995-2004. Arguably, his most memorable game facing the Tide came in 2003 when the Vols beat the Tide in five overtimes, 51-43. Fulmer had great respect for the rivalry, “It’s important for our players to realize that the guys on both sides that have worn the orange and white or the crimson and white forever look at this third Saturday of October as being special.”

When future Hall of Fame coach Nick Saban took over at Alabama in 2007, the pendulum swung hard back to the Tide. Saban has led the Tide to ten consecutive victories over the Volunteers by an average score of 35-12.

The games played on or close to the Third Saturday of October have seen Hall of Fame coaches strolling both sidelines, gutty performances on the field, and an intensity only a few rivalries in any sport can claim. This rivalry symbolizes everything that people love about college football. So whether you are a fan of Alabama or Tennessee or some other school, light up a victory cigar to celebrate all those people who have given their all or who will give their all on the Third Saturday of October!

 

 

Kentucky’s Worst Loss in SEC Play

 

325px-Uk_logo_preston_ursini.svgVanderbilt_Commodores

University of Kentucky basketball personifies excellence. The school has the most wins of any college basketball program in the country, eight national championships, 17 Final Four appearances, and 46 Southeastern Conference (SEC) titles. Yet, even great programs experience low points. Kentucky’s low point in SEC play came on February 12, 2008 in Memorial Gymnasium in Nashville, Tennessee. On that fateful night, the Vanderbilt University Commodores annihilated the Wildcats 93-52, administering the worst loss in the history of SEC play for Kentucky and the five-worst loss ever by a Kentucky basketball team.

Shan Foster pumped in 20 points for the Commodores while A.J. Ogilvy tallied 19 along with 12 rebounds (Lionel Richie did not score that night, at least in the game). Vanderbilt led 41-11 at halftime and led by as many as 43 points several times during the contest. Kentucky finished with more fouls (26) than made field goals (17).

Kentucky forward and future NBA player Patrick Patterson put it succinctly, “They played like men, and we played like boys.”

Under first-year coach Billy Gillespie, Kentucky started slowly at 6-5 with lopsided losses to Gardner-Webb and Indiana but had won five straight coming into the game, including a win over Tennessee. The Wildcats had already beaten Vanderbilt earlier in the year in Lexington, 79-73 in overtime.

So no one would have predicted a game like this, including Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings, “I didn’t see this coming in any way, shape or form. Not of this magnitude.”

Before this defeat to Vanderbilt, Kentucky’s worst loss to the Commodores came in 1989 by 30 points under Eddie Sutton’s watch. Kentucky’s worst loss ever came during the 1989-1990 season under Rick Pitino, this time to the Kansas Jayhawks by 55 points. Its previous worst SEC loss came against LSU by 35 points in 1987, also under Sutton.

Kentucky does not lose many basketball games, certainly not along the lines of the February 2008 Vanderbilt game. As a point of reference, Kentucky leads the all-time series with Vanderbilt 140-46, as of January 22, 2016.  To be fair to the Commodores, Kentucky has dominated most of its opponents over the years, but this game serves as an example of how even the great programs will belly flop from time to time.  As the old saying goes, “Nobody is perfect.”

 

Kentucky Traditions

 

325px-Uk_logo_preston_ursini.svg

Picture yourself sitting in a stadium or arena with fans clad in blue and white outfits raucously cheering for their beloved Wildcats. Unmistakably, you are watching one of the University of Kentucky’s athletic teams. Let’s examine the origin of the blue and white colors and the wildcat nickname.

Some Kentucky students in 1891 originally believed the school colors should have been blue and light yellow. However, blue and white became the official colors in 1892. The story goes that a student one day that year asked what shade of blue should serve as the official color and without hesitation football player Richard C. Stoll took off his necktie and held it up. Royal blue has been one of the school’s colors ever since.

The wildcat nickname has an interesting tale tied to it. Commander Philip Carbusier, head of the military department at the school in 1909, witnessed Kentucky’s 6-2 victory over the University of Illinois in Illinois in October. Later, in a chapel service, he told a group of students that the football team “fought like wildcats.” In subsequent years, as the name became more and more popular with Kentucky fans and the media, the university officially adopted the nickname.

The Wildcat moniker and the blue and white colors are synonymous with one of the great institutions of the Southeastern Conference, the University of Kentucky. Cheers to Mr. Stoll and Commander Carbusier!