Sewanee, long lost member of the SEC (A Feature Article by ESPN)
Texas A&M is trying -- and trying -- to join the SEC. When the Aggies do join -- which might happen next year -- it will mark the conference's first expansion in more than 20 years.
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Sewanee, long lost member of the SEC (A Feature Article by ESPN)
"We hope," Savage said, "they're going to re-extend their offer to Sewanee."80 years ago, Sewanee co-founded the SEC with 12 other colleges, all of which remain in the NCAA's Football Bowl Subdivision -- 11 of them in major conferences and 10 in the SEC.
That's right. Alabama, Auburn, Florida. Georgia, Georgia Tech, Kentucky. LSU, Mississippi, Mississippi State. Tennessee, Tulane, Vanderbilt. And Sewanee: the lost school of the SEC.
"They use [it] as a recruiting tool," said Savage, who played quarterback at Sewanee in the 1980s.
Here's what it means:
Nov. 9, 1899: Sewanee 12, Texas 0
Nov. 10, 1899: Sewanee 10, Texas A&M 0
Nov. 11, 1899: Sewanee 23, Tulane 0
Nov. 13, 1899: Sewanee 34, LSU 0
Nov. 14, 1899: Sewanee 12, Ole Miss 0
Those are not misprints. Nor are the scores of Sewanee's seven other wins that year -- all but one by shutout -- giving the team a 12-0 record, the distinction "Champions of the South," the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association title, and the right to be known as the "Iron Men" -- one of the most accomplished college teams ever.
On Sept. 30, 1933, the Sewanee Purple Tigers visited the University of Kentucky for the first football game in the newly created SEC. The score: Kentucky 7, Sewanee 0.
It never got better. Well, it did once; in a 1938 contest, Sewanee lost to Florida by just four points, 10-6.
Other than that? Dismal.
Sewanee lost all 37 of its SEC games (played from 1933 to 1940). The Tigers were shut out more than twice (26) for every game in which they scored (11). In 1935, they went 0-6 in conference and were outscored 189-0. In '37, it was SEC 204, Sewanee 7.
The school's final aggregate SEC score: 1,163-84.
At least their fans weren't around to see the carnage. With a small on-campus stadium making road games more lucrative to the university, Sewanee played every SEC contest away from home.
"Sewanee became what you might call the homecoming game," said former vice chancellor (akin to university president) Samuel Williamson, now a school historian.
