You couldn’t help but wonder what Johnny Majors would have thought at the close of the University of Tennessee’s 41-34 loss to the Pittsburgh Panthers on Saturday inside Neyland Stadium. After all, this was the Johnny Majors Classic, so named because the late Majors not only starred for and coached UT, but also because he coached Pitt to the 1976 season’s national championship with a little help from Heisman Trophy running back Tony Dorsett.
So the two schools decided to play this one in his honor, with a second installment slated for next season at the Steel City’s Heinz Field.
And if that one is as uncertain as this one was with less than five minutes to play, the Vols down by the final score but owning the ball inside the Pitt 40, it should once again draw ESPN’s interest. Might even be slated for prime time.
But as former Vols defensive back Charles Davis said last week of which way his coach might have leaned: “Pitt became family, but Tennessee was blood.”
True, and Majors did retire to Knoxville late in life after his second stint coaching the Panthers from 1993 to 1996 didn’t end as well as his first run there, though he did stay on at Pitt in a fundraising capacity for 11 more years before marching home again to his native Volunteer State for a final time.