Tennessee/General SEC History Questions

#1
Jnunn

Jnunn

Cautiously Pessimistic
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#1
I was looking at the history of the Tennessee/Auburn rivalry. I noticed the teams only played once from 1900-1935 and not at all from 1939-1956 despite being in the Southern Conference/SEC together. Obviously in the early 90's we lost our yearly game to expansion. Anyone have any insight on why we played so sparingly from 1900-1956 despite being relatively close in proximity to one another?

Unrelated to Tennessee, but I'm curious if anyone knows any details about South Carolina's conference affiliation history. Why did the Gamecocks leave the ACC in the 1970's? The conference makes/made a lot of sense for them geographically and culturally. Why the move to independence/their weird Metro Conference affiliation?

Last one, anyone know why Georgia Tech jumped ship from the SEC in the 60's? They were certainly still relevant in the conference with Bobby Dodd as coach and looks like they were still competing towards the end of his tenure.

Thanks all.
 
#2
#2
Jnunn said:
I was looking at the history of the Tennessee/Auburn rivalry. I noticed the teams only played once from 1900-1935 and not at all from 1939-1956 despite being in the Southern Conference/SEC together. Obviously in the early 90's we lost our yearly game to expansion. Anyone have any insight on why we played so sparingly from 1900-1956 despite being relatively close in proximity to one another?

Unrelated to Tennessee, but I'm curious if anyone knows any details about South Carolina's conference affiliation history. Why did the Gamecocks leave the ACC in the 1970's? The conference makes/made a lot of sense for them geographically and culturally. Why the move to independence/their weird Metro Conference affiliation?

Last one, anyone know why Georgia Tech jumped ship from the SEC in the 60's? They were certainly still relevant in the conference with Bobby Dodd as coach and looks like they were still competing towards the end of his tenure.

Thanks all.
Click to expand...
Don't have much insight into the Tennessee/Auburn rivalry. Could it have had something to do with Tennessee played Alabama every year too? In that 1900-1956 era you're talking about, Auburn actually didn't play Alabama very much. As hard as it is to believe today, Alabama and Auburn didn't play each other a single time from 1907 to 1948. Did we just not want to play Alabama and Auburn every year? Not sure.

South Carolina left the ACC in the 70s over disputes with the North Carolina schools. They were actually a founding member of the ACC.

Georgia Tech left over a dispute about the number of scholarships.
Fifty years ago, Georgia Tech left the SEC
 
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#3
#3
05_never_again said:
Don't have much insight into the Tennessee/Auburn rivalry. Could it have had something to do with Tennessee played Alabama every year too? In that 1900-1956 era you're talking about, Auburn actually didn't play Alabama very much. As hard as it is to believe today, Alabama and Auburn didn't play each other a single time from 1907 to 1948. Did we just not want to play Alabama and Auburn every year? Not sure.

South Carolina left the ACC in the 70s over disputes with the North Carolina schools. They were actually a founding member of the ACC.

Georgia Tech left over a dispute about the number of scholarships.
Fifty years ago, Georgia Tech left the SEC
Click to expand...

That's a great article, thank you. Hard to believe knowing what we know now about the SEC. I wonder if Tech would still be a big time sports program if they were in the SEC now or if they would basically be Vanderbilt 2.0.
 
#4
#4
I think in the early days of the conference, the SEC was just a loose affiliation of schools. Scheduling was up to the schools themselves. Tenn’s primary rivals in the early days would be Vandy, Alabama, Kentucky and Ga. Tech. After that, the Miss. schools and Ga. We rarely played Florida, LSU or Auburn. Proximity played a role but it might have been simply the AD’s didn’t like each other.
 
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#5
#5
Jnunn said:
That's a great article, thank you. Hard to believe knowing what we know now about the SEC. I wonder if Tech would still be a big time sports program if they were in the SEC now or if they would basically be Vanderbilt 2.0.
Click to expand...
Personally I think they'd be Vandy 2.0. I think that over the last many decades they have made institutional decisions to not emphasize sports as much as the other SEC schools. Even their initial decision to leave the SEC back in the 60s was related to that; instead of just signing 45 guys a year for football along with all the other SEC members, Bobby Dodd wanted the rule changed and they left the conference over it when they didn't get their way.

Tech also just doesn't fit all the well into the SEC culturally as a school, similar to Vandy. Tech is an academically-focused technical school while the other SEC members, ex-Vandy, are your stereotypical big state schools.
 
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#6
#6
I always heard that Neyland would not schedule teams not on the rail system and Auburn was one of them.
 
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#8
#8
BaldBiker said:
Just learned in the FF that CJP may not know enough about TN football history to know about the TE that may be playing this weekend for GA.

Not to worry though. Someone has offered to slip CJP a note, to fill him in.
Click to expand...
Wtf is a TE?
 
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#11
#11
SC left the ACC cause Frank Maguire, basketball coach got tired of losing in ACC basketball tournament and not getting in the NCAA. He had some great teams there (Mears beat the #1 ranked team in Columbia in ‘69 I believe) but rarely got to NCAA. They played the tourney every year in Greensboro and McGuire thought that was a huge disadvantage.
 
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