Beyond the Orange: Cedric Houston

Tennessee legend Cedric Houston joined Beyond the Orange sponsored by Knoxville Smiles this week to dive into career in orange and what he is up to now some 20 years after his time on Rocky Top came to a close.

“Woody McCorvey was a great coach and Steve Caldwell was a great recruiter,” Houston recalled back to when he started to fall in love with Tennessee. “He kept me and my mom informed on what was happening at Tennessee. Coach Fulmer was great and then we had Mrs. Judy Jackson here and my mom fell in love with her and that was a deciding factor in me coming to Tennessee.”

Coming in as a highly touted running back from Clarendon, Arkansas, Houston found a niche early on in Orange.

“We had Will Overstreet and John Henderson and Albert Haynesworth of the world,” Houston recalled. “Just a lot of those guys off that 98 team that were younger. The tradition was here and we knew it coming in as freshman with Jabari Davis and Derrick Tinsley. I wanted to come in and compete at that time, we didn’t know how good Travis Stephens was until the first few weeks of practice.

Watch the full episode of Beyond the Orange below.

Tennessee and Oklahoma have played only five times

Tennessee is 3-2 all time against Oklahoma, dating back to 1939.

The Vols won 25-15 at Oklahoma last season in the first game the Sooners played as an SEC team.

Tennessee beat Oklahoma 17-0 on New Year’s Day 1939 in the Orange Bowl. The Sooners won 26-24 in the 1968 Orange Bowl and beat the Vols 34-10 in Norman in 2014.

The 31-24 Oklahoma win in overtime in 2015 is the only game the Sooners have played at Neyland Stadium. 

Tennessee jumped out to a 17-0 lead by the 12:14 mark of the second quarter, but Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfieldrallied his team and tied the game on a touchdown pass with 40 seconds left. The Sooners won in the second overtime on an 18-yard pass to Sterling Shepard.