CLOSE CALL : Tennessee’s Majors Almost Didn’t Get His Chance to Coach in the Rose Bowl

In 21 seasons as a major-college football coach, Tennessee’s Johnny Majors has taken teams to every corner of the United States.

He has been coach of the year in two conferences, national coach of the year at Pittsburgh, won a national championship, coached a Heisman Trophy winner.

“But I’ve never coached in the Rose Bowl,” said Majors, who will get the chance Saturday night when the Volunteers (1-0) meet UCLA in the Bruins’ season opener.

He almost didn’t make it.

Majors, 54, came under heavy fire last season when his team, ranked in the top 20 in almost every preseason poll, lost its first six games. The Volunteers allowed Washington State to roll up 618 yards, the most ever given up by a Tennessee team, in a particularly galling 52-24 pounding.

It was the worst start in Tennessee history.

Bumper stickers called for Majors’ head. One read: “Go, Johnny, Go . . . and Take DeVoe With You.”

Don DeVoe was the Volunteers’ basketball coach. His teams never even lost as many as six straight games, but DeVoe resigned under pressure last spring.

A Chattanooga newspaper published a poll showing that fans were overwhelmingly against Majors.

And after the third loss, a Nashville radio programmer, Duncan Stewart of WSIX, climbed onto a billboard outside Knoxville, vowing to stay there until the Volunteers won.

He maintained his perch through three more games and 33 days.

Fans had never seen anything like this Tennessee tumble.

But Majors had.

Forty years ago, he was the starting quarterback as a freshman for one of the worst high school teams in Tennessee.

“We lost the first game, 58-0; the second one, 75-6,” Majors said. “We ended up winning one game and losing nine by tremendous scores: 65-7, 33-0 and 39-7. I’ll remember those scores until I die.

“Life doesn’t always go exactly right every year.”

Majors survived that season, though, and became an All-American at Tennessee, a triple-threat tailback who finished second to Paul Hornung of Notre Dame in voting for the Heisman Trophy in 1956.

And he weathered last year’s storm of criticism, too.

After the Washington State debacle, which was played out in front of a home crowd of 92,276, Majors ran the Volunteers through a “mini spring practice,” as he called it, moved some offensive players to defense and restructured his defensive staff. He reassigned defensive coordinator Ken Donahue, who for 21 years at Alabama had been Bear Bryant’s defensive mastermind.

Donahue, 63, declined Majors’ offer of a desk job and quit.

The Volunteers, however, did not.

A loss to Alabama followed, but the resurgent Volunteers ended the season by winning their last five games.

Still, 5-6 seasons were not what Big Orange supporters had in mind 13 years ago, when Majors was appointed.

Or, perhaps, anointed?

The native son returned from Pittsburgh, where the Panthers, led by Tony Dorsett, were 12-0 in 1976 and won the national championship.

Majors has yet to approach that type of success at Tennessee, having won the Southeastern Conference championship and advanced to the Sugar Bowl only once in 12 seasons. In 1985, the Volunteers were 9-1-2, including a 26-26 tie with UCLA, and an upset of Miami in the Sugar Bowl, 35-7.

Until last season, though, nobody talked about getting rid of Majors. His teams had reached bowl games in seven consecutive seasons.

But in college football, attitudes change quickly.

“Obviously, you couldn’t keep going at Tennessee, or any place like us, if you continue to have losing seasons,” Doug Dickey, Tennessee athletic director, said at a news conference last week. “If you have losing seasons at a major school for very long, you’re going to have problems.”

Even so, the former coach gave Majors a vote of confidence.

“I try to be very close to what goes on with our programs--to stick my nose in their business,” Dickey said. “I think in the football program, the right things are going on with the right kind of people.”

The coach said he doesn’t concern himself with his job status.

Said Majors, who is under contract through the 1994 season: “The last thing I remember, I had a seven-year contract I signed two weeks before (last) season.

“But that doesn’t mean I enjoyed losing. I like to win.”

Attaining the success he enjoyed at Pitt 13 years ago has been an elusive goal, he said.

“But it’s been elusive for a lot of coaches,” he added. “Very few coaches have teams that go 12-0. So many things can happen.”

Still, Majors would like nothing better than to relive the glory.

“That’s a desire all of us have,” he said. “I’d like to do it year after year. Win every game. I’d like to do it another time--at least.

“But if it doesn’t happen, I don’t plan to go out and cut my throat. Never know. I might. But I don’t plan to now.”

Another season like last year’s, and he might be handed a knife.