UCLA vs. Tennessee Football: A Gridiron History

The rivalry between the UCLA Bruins and the Tennessee Volunteers, though not as frequent as some other matchups, is rich with historical moments and memorable games. From nail-biting finishes to significant upsets, encounters between these two college football programs have often left an indelible mark on the sport.

A Look Back at Key Encounters

Throughout the years, UCLA and Tennessee have clashed on the gridiron, producing games filled with drama and excitement. While the series isn't defined by annual meetings, the contests that have occurred stand out for their competitiveness and impact.

The 1965 Thriller

In the annals of college football history, few games exemplify the dramatic and fiercely competitive spirit of the sport quite like the 1965 showdown between the Tennessee Volunteers and the UCLA Bruins. The game pitted the 7th-ranked Volunteers against the 5th-ranked Bruins in a non-conference clash that had significant implications for both teams' seasons. Tennessee, under the guidance of head coach Doug Dickey, was looking to cement its status as a national powerhouse. UCLA, led by first-year head coach Tommy Prothro and featuring future Heisman Trophy winner Gary Beban at quarterback, aimed to showcase its prowess on a national stage.

The encounter did not disappoint. In front of a crowd of 44,495, the teams engaged in a seesaw battle that showcased the talents of players who would go on to leave lasting marks both in college football and the professional ranks. For Tennessee, sophomore quarterback Dewey Warren took the reins, leading a team that boasted future NFL talents such as Tom Fisher, Frank Emanuel, Stan Mitchell, Austin Denney, Bob Petrella, and Hal Wantland.

UCLA's squad, equally studded with talent, was led by the dynamic Gary Beban, who would emerge as one of college football's most storied players. Despite the Bruins' valiant effort and strategic gameplay, it was Tennessee who emerged victorious, clinching a thrilling 37-34 win in a game that went down to the wire.

This victory was emblematic of Tennessee's resilience and strategic depth. Under Dickey's leadership, the Volunteers demonstrated their ability to compete against top-tier teams, leveraging a balanced attack and a staunch defense to secure the win. For UCLA, the loss was a bitter pill but not one that defined their season. The Bruins, under Prothro's astute leadership, would go on to have a successful season, highlighted by a victory in the Rose Bowl against Michigan State on January 1, 1966.

The 1965 clash between Tennessee and UCLA was more than just a game; it was a testament to the enduring appeal of college football. It showcased the unpredictable nature of the sport, where a single game can feature future legends, strategic masterclasses, and the sheer unpredictability that makes football a beloved sport across the United States.

As fans reflect on this historic matchup, the legacy of the game continues to resonate. It serves as a reminder of the passion, dedication, and excellence that define college football. For Tennessee and UCLA, the 1965 game remains a highlight in their storied histories, a moment when the sport transcended the confines of the field to become a lasting memory for those who witnessed it.

This memorable game not only highlighted the talents of its participants, some of whom would go on to achieve significant success in the NFL, but also exemplified the spirit of competition and camaraderie that is the hallmark of college football. As the years pass, the 1965 Tennessee vs.

The 1967 Game: Beban's Heroics

Arguably the most memorable and historical game was back in 1967, when UCLA's Gary Beban, who was often referred to and called The Great One, led the Bruins to a 20-16 victory over the Vols. In 1967, Prothro helped a second quarterback capture the Heisman Trophy when Gary Beban was awarded the trophy after the regular season. He would bring his No. 1 ranked UCLA Bruin team to face No. 2 USC in one of the "Games of the Century". Despite playing with cracked ribs, Beban threw for 301 yards, but UCLA lost, 21-20, on a spectacular 64-yard run by O. J. Simpson in the 1967 USC vs. UCLA football game. Another big factor was UCLA's acclaimed sophomore kicker Zenon Andusyshyn missing a chip shot field goal, and having two field goals and an extra point attempt blocked.

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Recent Encounters

The most recent game that was considered a classic was back in 2008, when UCLA defeated Tennessee in overtime at the Rose Bowl. These two programs last recently played one another in back-to-back seasons in 2008 and 2009 during the Great Recession. UCLA won both times in close games, defeating the Vols by three and four points. Ten of the fifteen games they played have been decided by six or less points. UCLA and Tennessee's games in 1974 and 1985 both resulted in ties and both of the games were played in Knoxville, TN.

UCLA Bruins: A Program Overview

The UCLA Bruins football program represents the University of California, Los Angeles, in college football as members of the Big Ten Conference at the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) level. The Bruins have enjoyed several periods of success in their history, having been ranked in the top ten of the AP Poll at least once in every decade since the poll began in the 1930s.

Early Years and the Red Sanders Era

The first football team fielded by UCLA took the field in 1919. The team was coached by Fred Cozens, and compiled a 2-6 record. UCLA did not participate in an athletic conference until 1920, so the 1919 football team played a schedule full of local high schools and other assorted teams. Cozens was UCLA's athletics director from 1919 to 1942. Harry Trotter took over the young UCLA football program after Cozens stepped down after guiding the Bruins in their first season. UCLA began to play in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) in 1920, and competed against Occidental College, California Institute of Technology, University of Redlands, Whittier College, and Pomona College. Coach Trotter's two wins were against Redlands and San Diego State, which did not join the SCIAC until 1926. Trotter left UCLA with a 2-13-1 record in three seasons (1920-1922). James J. William H. Spaulding came to UCLA from Minnesota in 1925. Edwin C. Horrell was promoted to head coach following Spaulding's retirement. His 1942 UCLA Bruins team lost to Georgia in the 1943 Rose Bowl. He was the first coach to lead a UCLA team to defeat rival USC. It was the first football victory in the UCLA-USC rivalry. The 1954 Bruins compiled a 9-0 record and climbed to the top of the Coaches' Poll, sharing the national championship with Ohio State, winner of the AP Poll's title. Due to the PCC's early "no repeat" rule, the undefeated Bruins were unable to compete in the Rose Bowl that season despite being the PCC champion. Second-place USC, who the Bruins beat 34-0, played in the 1955 Rose Bowl instead and lost to Big Ten Conference champion and eventual co-national champion Ohio State, 20-7. Henry Sanders was also known for intensifying the Bruins' rivalry with USC. His teams were always given a speech before the game against their cross-town rivals that always ended with "Beat SC!" A famous quote was attributed to Sanders regarding the rivalry, "Beating 'SC isn't a matter of life and death.

Coaching Changes and Tommy Prothro's Arrival

After the death of Red Sanders, assistant coach George W. Dickerson took over the Bruins on an interim basis before suffering a nervous breakdown. Then, a full-time head coach was hired. William F. Barnes was the head coach for the UCLA Bruins football team for seven seasons. He guided his teams to a 31-34-3 (.478) record. He did have two seven-win seasons in 1960 and 1961, leading the Bruins to the 1962 Rose Bowl. That year, the Bruins finished the season ranked No. 16 in the final AP poll. Barnes resigned after the 1964 season after learning that athletics director J.D. On January 11, 1965, Tommy Prothro was hired away from Oregon State as head coach of the UCLA Bruins. In the 1965 football season, the Bruins lost their season opening game 13-3 at Michigan State, who then rose to become the top-ranked team in the country. The unheralded Bruins would go on a seven-game undefeated streak, surprising national powers the likes of Syracuse and Penn State. Going into the 1965 UCLA-USC rivalry football game ranked No. 7, the conference championship and 1966 Rose Bowl were on the line. No. Prothro and the Bruins went on to completed the season with a dramatic pay-back upset victory over the No. 1 ranked Michigan State Spartans in the 1966 Rose Bowl, 14-12. Heading into the final game of the 1966 season vs. USC, UCLA was 2-1 in conference games, 8-1 overall and ranked No. 5 in the country. The Bruins, featuring a "dream backfield" of All-Americans Gary Beban and Mel Farr, lost only one game, at rainy Washington, 16-3, where Huskies' head coach Jim Owens had devoted his entire season to beating Prothro. UCLA had beaten UW the season before, 28-24, with Prothro's trick play, the Z-streak in which a receiver trots towards the sideline like he's going out of the game and then runs a streak pattern unguarded by the inattentive defender. USC was 4-0 in conference and 7-1 overall, having lost to unranked Miami. The Bruins and Trojans played a different number of conference due to uneven scheduling caused by new AAWU members Oregon and Oregon State and schedules made years in advance. It was widely assumed that only losses would be considered and the winner of the 1966 UCLA-USC game would go to the 1967 Rose Bowl. UCLA star quarterback Gary Beban broke his ankle the week before in a win over Stanford, but backup Norman Dow, making his first and only start at quarterback, led UCLA to a 14-7 win. That left USC with a 4-1 conference record (7-2 overall) and No. Due to their win over USC, it was widely assumed UCLA would get the Rose Bowl berth. However, a vote the next Monday among the AAWU conference athletic directors awarded USC the Rose Bowl berth. It was speculated that the directors believed Beban could not play for UCLA in the Rose Bowl due to the broken ankle, thereby giving the Big Ten Conference representative, Purdue, a better chance to win. As it turned out, Beban could have played. But a bigger reason was that this was to make up for 1964 when Oregon State was voted in ahead of USC. The coach of Oregon State in 1964 was Prothro. Another speculation was the vote was against UCLA out of pure jealousy by the rest of the conference, which voted 7-1 for the clearly inferior team. This vote deprived Prothro of being the first coach to earn three consecutive Rose Bowl berths and UCLA athletic director J.D. Morgan called it a "gross injustice" and the "a dark day in UCLA and AAWU Athletic history." Inflamed UCLA students who had gathered for the Rose Bowl celebration rally, took to the streets of Westwood in protest and actually blocked the 405 Freeway for a short time. Ironically, Morgan was the force behind establishing a tie-breaking method adopted by the conference one year later in which only loss column counted; the first tiebreaker was head-to-head results, followed by overall record. If there was still a tie, the Rose Bowl berth would go to the team that had not played in the Rose Bowl the longest. But it was too late for UCLA. In their final game, USC made the AAWU decision look bad by losing to No. 1 Notre Dame, 51-0.

The Pepper Rodgers Era

In what was acknowledged to be a rebuilding year, the Bruins opened the 1968 season with a 63-7 defeat of Pittsburgh and a win over Washington State. The season ground to a halt at Syracuse and with the season-ending injury of quarterback Billy Bolden, and UCLA would win only one more game, over Stanford 20-17. The Bruins gave No. 1 USC and Heisman Trophy winner O. J. 1969 was the year Prothro had geared his recruiting efforts towards as he believed this was his best team and was capable of contending for the national championship. The Bruins, quarterbacked by a sensational Junior College transfer Dennis Dummit discovered by Prothro, were undefeated until they faced No. 10 Stanford in Palo Alto. Once again, Prothro was let down by now senior kicker Zenon Andrusyshyn as he missed a short field goal late in the game with the score tied 20-20. Suddenly, two long Jim Plunkett passes had Stanford in field goal range in the final seconds, but UCLA blocked Steve Horowitz's attempt to preserve the tie. Once again, the UCLA-USC game would decide the Pac-8 title and the 1970 Rose Bowl berth. UCLA was ranked 6th with a 5-0-1 record in conference and 8-0-1 overall USC was No. 5 and was 6-0 in conference and 8-0-1 overall (tied Notre Dame in South Bend, 14-14); UCLA and USC were both unbeaten coming into their rivalry game for the first time since 1952. UCLA scored midway through the fourth quarter to take a 12-7 lead (knowing he need a win and not a tie to advance to the Rose Bowl, Prothro had the Bruins go for two after each touchdown and each attempt failed). USC then drove to the winning touchdown with 1:38 to play to win 14-12. The Trojans were aided by two controversial calls; the first was a dubious pass interference call on UCLA's Danny Graham on a 4th-and-10 incompletion. Secondly, on the winning touchdown pass reception, USC receiver Sam Dickerson appeared to be either out of bounds, out of the back of the end zone, or both. In what turned out to be his final season at UCLA, Prothro's team suffered a rash of key injuries and finished 6-5, yet they were three close games from a 9-2 season and Rose Bowl berth. Before those injuries set in, UCLA took a 3-0 record into Austin to play defending national champ and top ranked Texas. Trailing 13-3 at the half, UCLA rallied and had a 17-13 lead in the final minute. But with 12 seconds left, Texas completed a long pass when their receiver caught the ball between two UCLA defenders, who then collided, allowing the receiver to score. UCLA also blew a 20-point fourth quarter lead against Oregon, when Ducks sophomore quarterback Dan Fouts rallied his team to three touchdowns and a 41-40 win. Finally, there came the showdown with Stanford; the game was expected to be a shootout between UCLA quarterback Dennis Dummit and Heisman winner Jim Plunkett. But the defenses ruled as UCLA took a 7-6 lead into the 4th quarter. Stanford took a 9-7 lead on a field goal, but UCLA was driving to a potential game-winning field goal or touchdown themselves when they completed a pass inside the Stanford 10-yard-line, only to have the receiver get sandwiched by two defenders on the tackle and fumble. This game ultimately decided the Pac-8 championship and 1971 Rose Bowl representative. The season ended on a high note however, when UCLA beat rival USC, 45-20, in a game that was not that close. This would end up being Prothro's final game at UCLA. Pepper Rodgers came to UCLA from Kansas after the departure of Prothro. In Rodgers' three seasons at the helm of the Bruins, UCLA finished 2-7-1, 8-3 and 9-2. In 1972, the Bruins began the season with a 20-17 victory over two-time defending national champion Nebraska, and finished the season ranked No. 17 and No. 15 in the final Coaches' and AP polls, respectively. In 1973, the Bruins finished ranked No.

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Later Successes

As head coach at UCLA, Dick Vermeil compiled a 15-5-3 record in two seasons (1974-1975), including a 9-2-1 record in 1975 when he led the Bruins to their first conference championship in 10 years, and a win in the Rose Bowl over undefeated and No. The 1997 team finished as co-champions of the Pacific-10 Conference with Washington State. However, with Washington State defeating the Bruins in the season opener, the Cougars earned the right to play in the Rose Bowl. The highlights of that season were a 66-3 win over the Texas and a victory at the Cotton Bowl Classic over Texas A&M, and a victory over USC. The 1998 season started out as one of the best in the history of UCLA football. The team was high enough in the BCS standings to merit entry to the national championship game, and all UCLA needed to do was beat unranked University of Miami, who were major underdogs after a 66-13 loss to Syracuse the week before. UCLA was also coming off of their eighth consecutive victory over USC and 20th straight win overall. In 2005, his third season as head football coach, Dorrell was able get his first win against a ranked opponent, No. 21 Oklahoma, featuring Adrian Peterson. On October 1, 2005, head coach Tyrone Willingham and his Washington Huskies came to the Rose Bowl for a Pacific-10 Conference game to play UCLA. This was the first time two black head coaches faced each other in a Pac-10 conference game. At the time, Sylvester Croom of Mississippi State was the only other black coach heading an NCAA Division I football program. Dorrell achieved his first win against a top-ten opponent with a 47-40 upset win over No. 10-ranked rival California. Three Bruin wins in the 2005 season set new school records for biggest comebacks earning the nickname "The Cardiac Kids." They came thanks largely to the heroics of quarterback Drew Olson and tailback Maurice Jones-Drew. In the regular season the Bruins came from down 21 points to win in overtime against both Washington State and Stanford. In the Stanford comeback, the Bruins scored 21 points in the final 7:04 of the fourth quarter. In the Sun Bowl, the Bruins set the record again by coming back from 22 points down. The Bruins were ranked No. 7 in the nation until a 52-14 blowout loss to a 3-8 Arizona team. The Bruins came into the UCLA-USC rivalry last regular season game ranked No. 11. They suffered a 66-19 defeat to the No. 1 2005 USC Trojans football team. This was the largest margin of defeat since the series began in 1929 with a 76-0 defeat. The Bruins finished third in the Pac-10 standings. On December 30, 2005, his Bruins defeated the Northwestern Wildcats in the Sun Bowl, 50-38, finishing the season with a 10-2 record. At the end of the 2005 season, Dorrell received pay bonuses for coaching successful seasons. In 2006, Dorrell's fourth season, the Bruins finished the season 7-6 (5-4 in conference) and finished fourth-place in the Pac-10. UCLA played its first…

Potential Friendship Between Fan Bases

The possible and potential friendship between Tennessee Vols and UCLA Bruin football fans this season seems to have a lot to do with the transfer of former Tennessee quarterback, Nico Iamaleava, to UCLA.

As famously quoted in the movie Step Brothers."Brennan: “Did we just become best friends?”Dale: “Yep!”Brennan: “Do you wanna do karate in the garage?”Dale: “Yep!”

Here's a breakdown of how the situation of a quarterback unfolded and how it may have brought two fan bases together.

Iamaleava's Transfer

Nico Iamaleava, a highly-touted recruit, was their starting quarterback last season and led the Vols to a CFP appearance, and most Tennessee fans were happy with his play. His decision to transfer to UCLA created a strong reaction among many around the country, albeit an initially complex situation that many did not understand at first. Among both fan bases, feelings on his transfer were complex and unique.

A Shared Point of Interest

With Iamaleava now the starting quarterback at UCLA, both fan bases have a vested interest in his performance. Tennessee fans are watching to see how he does, and thus far, not been the start many were expecting from him, and UCLA fans are hoping that he can help the Bruins overcome a 0-2 start. The commentary through the media and on social media platforms often involves comparing his current situation as the starting quarterback of the Bruins with his time last season at Tennessee, which brings both fan bases into the same conversation and dialogue. For example, some media outlets have suggested that Iamaleava's performance at UCLA "proves Tennessee fans were right all along." This kind of commentary, seen as criticism of his play through two games, creates a unique bond between the two fan bases as they react to the same story in similar and different ways.

Unexpected Interactions

The replies and responses to one another have been civil for the most part and even humorous, as both fanbases have taken the posts of each other's fanbases in stride. Here are two examples and the replies and comments are evidence that for the most part, both fanbases have either bonded or at minimum, had a good, humorous laugh and have responded in a respectful matter.

"We respect the Tennessee fans as they are letting us know that UCLA is 0-2 right now, we get it. Thank you for notifying us. Tennessee fans, we hope to give you a more detailed update by early November if that is okay with all of you. We really appreciate your passion and dedication to pointing out all of the "not good" things UCLA football has done this season."

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