January 2, 1939
UT - 17
Oklahoma - 0
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.
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. An outbreak of an illness spread through the UT team leading up to the game.
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.
