How 1985 Sugar Vols remember Johnny Majors
Few Tennessee football teams are remembered as fondly as the 1985 squad, dubbed the Sugar Vols after their triumph over Miami in the Sugar Bowl.
The season became a catalyst for Tennessee’s program and a highlight of Johnny Majors’ coaching tenure.
The Vols won the SEC championship that year for the first time since 1969. They’d go on to win two more SEC titles under Majors and become one of the nation’s most dominant football programs during the 1990s under Majors’ successor, Phillip Fulmer.
“We built a program. He built a program,” former Vols wide receiver Tim Mcgee, a senior captain for the 1985 team, said of Majors. “I personally don’t think he gets enough credit for where Tennessee ended up being, which was national champions, because he built the program. What the ’85 season meant to the University of Tennessee, it allowed them to pretty much get any and all recruits they wanted or needed.”
Majors, an All-america tailback at Tennessee who later rebuilt the program as coach, died Wednesday morning. He was 85.
Players from the 1985 team remember a coach who was demanding but fair, cared for his players and played a defining role in Tennessee football history.
“His biggest asset was his class,” Mcgee said. “He was such a classy individual, both on and off the field. And he truly cared about the individuals as well as the team. He used to always say things like, ‘You’re a fine young man.’ When you have that type of leadership that’s interested in the individual as well as the collective team, you’re going to migrate to that, because you’re going to grow, not only as a player, but as a person.
“A lot of times these things are said after something happens like this, and it’s just not true. Well, in this case, it’s 100% true. The representation is on point."
The Sugar Vols slayed top foes
Tony Robinson made a vow to Majors
in the tunnel at Neyland Stadium on Sept. 28, 1985.
“Coach, I got this one,” the former Vols quarterback recalled telling Majors before taking the field against No. 1 Auburn. “I got this one. Don’t worry about a thing. I got this one.”
Robinson remained peeved by Tennessee’s loss to Auburn the year before — he was slowed by an ankle injury that day and did not finish the game — and was eager to make amends in an Abctelevised game.
Robinson passed for 259 yards and four touchdowns, and the Vols bottled up Bo Jackson in a 38-20 victory that Majors described as “one of the great games in UT history.” Fans toppled the goalposts and carted their prize to a celebration on Cumberland Avenue.
The following issue of Sports Illustrated featured Robinson on the cover with the headline “THE TENNESSEE WALTZ.”
Three weeks later, Robinson was lost for the season with a knee injury suffered in the second half against Alabama.
Daryl Dickey, a career backup whose Vols career started in 1980, took the reins. The Vols held off the rival Crimson Tide 16-14 for their second win over a ranked foe.
“Coach Majors supported me,” Dickey said. “I was probably not the most popular choice (to replace Robinson) at the time, but I was certainly the oldest, that had been around the longest. And I’ve always appreciated him for his support of me and giving me the opportunity and sticking with me when we were trying to figure out what to do next.”
A sweet ending to a special season
Tennessee finished that season 91-2, culminating in a 35-7 win over No. 2 Miami in the Superdome in New Orleans. Had the Hurricanes won, they would have been national champions because Oklahoma had beaten No. 1 Penn State in the Orange Bowl.
Miami scored first before Tennessee rattled off five straight touchdowns behind Dickey, who earned the game’s MVP honors.
“Coach Majors molded that team and, along with his staff, he made us believe in ourselves that we could go out and beat anybody,” said Phil Stuart, a redshirt freshman offensive lineman on that ’85 team.
"When we went to the Sugar Bowl, nobody gave us a chance, but Coach Majors and his staff believed in us that we could win.”
Majors’ interests spanned beyond football to history, travel and symphony.
“He was sharp as a tack," Robinson said.
But Stuart once got the best of his former coach. Stuart joined Majors, former UT running back Johnnie Jones and a few others on a flight to Memphis in 2018 for a celebration in Munford, which named a street after Jones.
Nearing Memphis, Stuart remembered looking down and seeing the Tennessee River. He pointed it out. Majors disagreed and insisted it was the Mississippi River.
They placed a $5 wager. Upon landing, the pilot pulled out a map showing geographic features to prove that Stuart was correct. It was the Tennessee River. Majors coughed up the $5.
Stuart never spent the five-dollar bill and says he never will. He keeps it propped up against a team photo of the 1985 Vols.
They’re reminders of a special coach who guided the Vols on a storied season.