General Neylands Maxims of Football

Tennessee's version of the great coach that built the foundation that our program has stood on was General Robert Neyland. General Neyland graduated from West Point where he was a star pitcher, and football player in 1916. A great baseball prospect he was offered contracts by many teams including the Boston Red Sox who also owned the rights to a young Herman Ruth. Also known as "Babe." He served in WWI and was an Aide to Douglas MacArthur then the Superintendant at West Point and became an assistant football coach. He left to become the Professor of Military science and the head football coach at the University of Tennessee in 1926. He held the army rank of Major, and coached the Vols for nine years before being called back into service to Panama for one. He retired to coach football full time and had two undefeated seasons in 1938 and 1939. He was called back into the service of the army once again in 1941 and retired for a second time in 1946. As a Brigadier General he coached the Vols until 1952. Finishing his career with 173 wins in only 213 games (81%) with six conference titles and four national titles to his credit. Two things carry on the legacy of General Neyland, the stadium that bares his name and his "7 maxims of football."
The stadium was not just named in his honor. HE DESIGNED IT. The designs that he drew up included all of the expansions that have brought it to the size it is today.
He was famous for his notes and thoughts on motivation and simple knowlege that when looked at seem so simple, but when looked at after a game, if you achieved them, you did something great.
Some of these thoughts became his "7 Maxims of football" while others became simple folklore among the Orange nation. Such as before a Florida game he said "Some teams dash out on the field with tears in their eyes to do or die for alma mater" he said"if you go out there with tears in your eyes, you wont be able to see the ball. I want you to see it." They went on to win 13-12. The other two best examples of the greatness of Gen. Neyland came from Coaching peers. To argue the satement that "great players make great coaches" Alabama's Wallace Wade said of Gen. Neyland: "He could take his and beat yours, or he could take yours and beat his." After going undefeated in 1938 and 1939 Jock Sutherland the head coach from Pittsburgh who had won the national title two years earlier, said the vols could "beat any team in the country, and that goes for pro teams as well. General Neyland's work at Tennessee exceeds anything I have ever seenin all of my football experience. There are no flaws in the Tennessee team." One of his Maxim's stated that the team that made the fewest mistakes would win. To reduce the number of mistakes he limited his teams to two dozen offensive plays and four basic defenses. He also insisted "No offensive play should be used in a game until it has been rehearsed 500 times."

Seven Maxims of Football

The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win.

Play for and make the breaks and when one comes your way - SCORE.

If at first the game - or the breaks - go against you, don't let up... put on more steam.

Protect our kickers, our QB, our lead and our ball game.

Ball, oskie, cover, block, cut and slice, pursue and gang tackle... for this is the WINNING EDGE.

Press the kicking game. Here is where the breaks are made.

Carry the fight to our opponent and keep it there for 60 minutes