SEWANEE, Tenn. – John Majors was in attendance at Sewanee’s football game Saturday, when the 1963 team that included his brother Larry and was coached by their father, Shirley, was honored as part of the school’s 2010 Hall of Fame class.
That was the last Sewanee football team that went undefeated and untied, and that won’t change this year. The Tigers could not follow up their dominant season-opening victory last week with a similar performance and fell 48-17 to visiting Washington and Lee.
On the oldest college football field in the South, one of the schools that played the first college game in the South – W&L, against adjacent campus VMI in 1873 – kept some recent history going. The Generals continued a losing streak in season-opening games last weel, but they have won 10 of their last 11 second games, and they have won six meeetings in a row against Sewanee and 11 of the last 12.
The Generals’ running game and the Tigers’ inability to get offensive continuity or connect on passing post routes led to a 20-3 Washington and Lee halftime lead. But any idea of the home team that it could quickly get back in the game after the Hall of Fame introductions vanished in the visitors’ rushing attack featuring Brett Murray and Harrison Hudson on sweeps and Luke Heinsohn up the middle.
Murray, Heinsohn and quarterback Charlie Westfal ran for first-half touchdowns. Murray, a sophomore from Lookout Mountain and Baylor School, opened the scoring with a 7-yard run midway through the first quarter. He also scored the first points of the second half on a 10-yard reception from Westfal.
Heinsohn made it 34-3 with a 3-yard burst. But Curtis Johnson, the second of two freshman quarterbacks used by the Tigers, passed to Chalankis Brown for a 36-yard Sewanee touchdown, and backup W&L quarterback Russell Stewart scored on a keeper for a 41-10 margin.
Starting Sewanee quarterback Lee Schurlknight dashed through the line for a 45-yard touchdown with 8:53 remaining in the game, but the Generals added another touchdown with 2:04 to go when Tate Bloomer sprinted around right end for another long score on third-and-5.
W&L ran for 464 yards and totaled 543 yards of offense and 26 first downs, while holding Sewanee to 187 rushing yards, 45 passing yards and 11 first downs.
“They’re good at what they do,” Sewanee coach Robert Black said. “If we had got execution on our passes over the top, it could’ve been 20-17 at the half and a shootout, but we didn’t execute. Then we got to trying to control the clock to keep our defense off the field. But our freshman quarterbacks got better for the second week in a row.
“This will be our guys’ first test,” Black added. “We came in to camp and never had a bad practice, and we had a great win last week. Now this is our first loss and we go to nationally ranked Hampden-Sydney.”
Sewanee defensive back Alfonza Knight had 10 solo tackles and an assist and forced two fumbles, and linebacker Zac Atkins totaled eight tackles, forced a fumble and recovered one. Jesse Jenkins led the Generals with 10 tackles, including four primary hits.
Other Hall of Fame inductees were the 1953-54 cross country teams, basketball player Jennifer Bulkeley Staats, baseball player Billy Cunningham, footballer Frank Greer, wrestler Hank Haynes and tennis player Mary Missbach Dressler.
Contact Ron Bush at rbush@timesfreepress.com or (423) 757-6291.