KNOXVILLE — Perhaps they’ll call it the “Johnny Majors Bowl.”
Tennessee and Pittsburgh, two of the programs the former Volunteers running back coached during his career, announced on Wednesday they’d agreed to play a home-and-home series in 2021 and 2022.
The Vols will host the first game of the two-game set on Sept. 11, 2021, at Neyland Stadium before playing the Panthers at Heinz Field, the home of the NFL’s Steelers, on Sept. 10, 2022.
According to the contract signed by athletic directors Dave Hart (Tennessee) and Randy Juhl (Pittsburgh), each team will pay the other $300,000 within 60 days of the game it hosts, and the buyout for each game is $1 million.
The Panthers beat Tennessee in both of the programs’ two previous meetings in 1980 and 1983 while Majors was coaching the Vols after leading Pitt to the 1976 national championship.
Majors was an All-American for the Vols and finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1956 to Notre Dame’s Paul Hornung, the two-way star who’s the only player to win the award while playing for a team with a losing record.
After posting a 24-30-1 record in five seasons at Iowa State during his first stint as a head coach, Majors took over at Pitt in 1973. In his fourth season, the Panthers won the 1976 title behind Heisman Trophy winning tailback Tony Dorsett. Pitt crushed Georgia 27-3 in the Sugar Bowl to finish a 12-0 season.
Majors, a Tennessee native, was hired by Tennessee the following season to replace Bill Battle and coached the Vols to a 116-62-8 record in 16 seasons in Knoxville. Only Gen. Robert Neyland (173) and Phillip Fulmer (152), who replaced Majors in 1992, have more coaching wins in program history. The Vols won SEC titles in 1985, 1989 and 1990 under Majors.
In the 1980 game in Knoxville, Pitt won 30-6 with converted safety Rick Trocano throwing for 237 yards in the absence of star quarterback Dan Marino and Willie Gault giving Tennessee its only points on a 100-yard kickoff return touchdown.
In the 1983 rematch, also in Knoxville, John Cummings threw a 56-yard touchdown pass to Dwight Collins in the third quarter of Pitt’s 13-3 victory.
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.