How Robert Neyland's legendary coaching career at UT began 100 years ago

• University of Tennessee football coach Gen. Robert Neyland came to UT in April 1925 as an ROTC instructor.
• According to the newspaper, Neyland agreed to also assist with football as long as it did not conflict with his ROTC duties.
• By December 1925, UT announced Neyland would be the next head football coach, a role he held until his last season in 1952.

On April 5, 1925, Knoxville residents looked in their local newspaper and learned the seemingly non-breaking-news fact that the University of Tennessee was getting a new ROTC instructor for the fall to replace Lt. Joe Gorlinski.

The person’s name found on page 8 of the Knoxville Journal also did not mean anything at the time, but for the record, he was Capt. Robert Neyland. Although no one probably thought about it then, he would go on to impact the sports and recreation culture of Knoxville and maybe the entire state as much as any single person.

After taking over as head football coach in 1926, he would lead Tennessee to great heights on a national scale and in a sustained way not seen before by the players in orange. He was the first to take a UT sports program to the proverbial Rocky Top, and he would keep the Vols great until his last season in 1952, other than breaks while on Army active duty. 

Although Tennessee had some competitive football teams before, his championship results created a culture of expecting excellence. And for better or worse, it is an expectation Tennessee fans still have today that helps pack the massive Neyland Stadium named for this man.

Because the late summer and early fall of 2025 marks exactly 100 years since coach Neyland arrived in Knoxville to begin his celebrated career, the Shopper News is taking a look back at those first few weeks.

In the beginning

While legend has been passed down that Neyland came to Tennessee because of both ROTC and football, the football part was evidently a little bit of an afterthought, based on some old newspaper articles. However, the fact that he was a former West Point athlete and current assistant coach quickly became obvious to UT officials.

In fact, then-Tennessee head coach M.B. Banks went up to meet with the then-33-year-old Neyland at West Point on April 23 of that year about becoming an assistant for the Tennessee team. Banks evidently liked him, and the feeling was apparently mutual in Neyland’s eyes, but with one caveat.

As the newspaper said at the time, he agreed to also assist with football as long as it did not conflict with his ROTC duties. But that was all apparently worked out when Neyland was in Knoxville four days later — likely coming by train — and he conferred with Banks and Maj. Lawarson of the UT ROTC department. He also watched a UT spring scrimmage on Shields-Watkins Field that day.

His role at Tennessee was to coach ends and help with scouting. Having a military person involved with coaching football was not that unusual at the time, the newspaper said. James Van Fleet had just led Florida to successful seasons in 1923 and 1924 before leaving for military duty, and Georgia and Clemson also had military-serving coaches.

Coach Neyland arrived for fall practice on Sept. 8, a day after the team with maybe 30 returning players and a large number of additional freshmen had begun. Back in those days, the first games were often after the first day of fall, and Tennessee would not have its opener until Oct. 3 against Emory and Henry at home.

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On Sept. 24, many local fans had their first chance to meet Neyland in person when he, fellow assistant Bernard Oakes, coach Banks and the rest of the team attended a “pep meeting” on the top floor of the Dooley-Gillespie Building on Market Street in downtown Knoxville. A practice that Thursday open to the public had also been held, with the students even holding a pep rally on the field.

Tennessee that fall would finish a respectable 5-2-1, with a 12-7 victory at home over Georgia after Neyland had filled in with leadership duties some that week for an ailing coach Banks. The Vols’ four other wins were against Mississippi State, Emory and Henry, Maryville and Centre. They tied LSU but lost on the road to rivals Vanderbilt and Kentucky.

A newspaper story on Dec. 10 announced that coach Banks was leaving after five years — the longest tenure of any Vol coach at the time — to devote more time to his summer camps for boys at Calderwood by Blount County. If he was later forced out, the story did not say, but he had enjoyed a respectable 27-15-3 overall record. This coach, who would also later coach at Central High, had also successfully coached basketball and baseball and had written a basketball coaching book.

Although initial speculation centered around maybe Wallace Wade leaving Alabama or former Vol player Charlie Moran leaving Bucknell to take the job, Neyland was also being considered and pushed. That was in part for his demeanor and for helping make player J.G. Lowe the best end in the South.

From assistant to coach

The speculation ended on Dec. 22 of that season a century ago, when the UT Athletic Council announced they had found their man to lead UT — Robert Neyland.

And the rest, as they say, would become college football history.