Tennessee, Florida and a game winning drive for the ages in 1971

Phil Pierce saw something out of the corner of his eye. 

The Tennessee quarterback was about to make the most important throw of his career on a hot and humid night against Florida at Florida Field in Gainesville on Oct. 2, 1971, and he was looking for Joe Thompson. 

Stan Trott made him change his mind at the last second. 

Just as Pierce dropped back and eyed Thompson, he glanced over at Trott turning up field and breaking open. Then he uncorked a pass.

A Gators defensive back whiffed on it. Trott went low to gather it in, then turned around into the end zone for the deciding score in the Vols’ 20-13 triumph. 

The sequence completed a 99-yard march engineered by Pierce, who started the season weeks earlier as the third-string quarterback and ended up playing a new kind of role: hero. 

“I’m not sure how close the defensive backs were,” Pierce told reporters inside the visitors locker room where he was the center of attention postgame. “But it was a good feeling to see the ball in Stan’s hands.”

It was one of those rare Tennessee-Florida games, but it wasn’t short on dramatics.

Tennessee (7-3, 3-3 SEC) will play the Gators (3-7, 2-5) for the 35th-straight time on Saturday at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium (7:30 p.m. ET, ABC). It will be the last meeting between the two teams as annual opponents–the victims of another SEC scheduling shakeup.

The Vols are going for their first win in the fabled “Swamp” since 2003, and just their third in 54 years inside of a place that has become a house of horrors for even the best Tennessee teams. 

This is the story of one of those victories, a match up that inspired songwriters, psych games via new uniforms and a game-winning drive for the ages. 

Trickey Dickey and Bad Billy Battle

It started as a low rumble from the east stands at Florida Field, then erupted into a roar. 

The more than 10,000 Tennessee fans that filled the visitor’s section stood to their feet at the sight as Vols players poured out of the tunnel moments before facing Florida. 

There was something different.

A new SEC rule put into place in the offseason forced the Vols to abandon their orange jerseys away from Neyland Stadium, but Bill Battle found a way to sprinkle the beloved color on Tennessee’s road armour. 

The white pants with two orange stripes and the orange numerals on white jerseys were expected. But the orange around the collar and over the shoulders was a welcome sight. 

“We tried to get as much orange in it as possible,” an unnamed Tennessee assistant coach told the Knoxville News-Sentinel. “Or as much as is legal.”

Across the field, a familiar face stalked the sideline in Florida head coach Doug Dickey. He tried to pull his own pregame theatrics by having the Gators wear orange jerseys instead of their usual blue tops. 

Just a few years earlier, Dickey was wearing the other shade of orange when he was bringing Tennessee back to the national stage as the Vols’ coach. In six years in Knoxville, Dickey won 46 games, beat Alabama three times and won the SEC twice. Then he left for Florida, the place where he played quarterback in the early 1950s at the end of 1969 season. 

In a poetic twist, Florida happened to be on the Vols’ schedule the next two seasons. 

Dickey’s return to Tennessee in 1970 was less than kind. The 28-year-old Battle, once Dickey’s young assistant coach, was promoted to head coach after his departure and bested his former boss, 38-7 on a rainy afternoon at Neyland Stadium. 

Songs were written about it. One Tennessee fan penned one titled “The Battle Song,” that referenced Dickey as “Tricky Dickey” that played on Knoxville radio stations in the week leading up to the game. 

In retaliation, a Florida football player wrote his own song called, “Bad Billy Battle,” with lyrics that were a stark contrast to the gentlemanly Battle. 

Dickey added a little more flare to the second meeting in 1971 when he scheduled the game after sundown—something Florida hadn’t done at home in nearly 20 years. The switch up to the uniforms seemed like an act of gamesmanship, too. 

“While the Vols worked up a mild sweat, the Florida cheerleaders, assisted by a raucous loudspeaker, whipped up the crowd with a question,” the Knoxville News-Sentinel’s Tom Siler wrote. “‘Are we going to beat Tennessee tonight?’ He got the obvious answer. A few more of those and a few thousand Vols visitors were ready to sit up and play.”

A long-awaited chance

Bill Battle stormed onto Florida Field. 

As the ball rested at the 1-yard line in the third quarter, Battle b-lined for an official after a Florida punt put 99 yards between Tennessee and the lead. 

It was a rare outburst from the normally mild-mannered Battle, who was contesting the placement of the ball. He argued that the Vols should have gotten it out to the 20-yard line because a Gators player pounced on it at the 1 and rolled into the end zone. 

All Battle’s contesting did was draw a penalty, backing up Tennessee half of a yard. 

It seemed like only moments before that the Vols were having a repeat of their previous clash with Florida. 

Pierce played a few downs in the Vols’ comfortable win over Santa Barbara in the opener two weeks earlier and didn’t play in a 10-9 loss to Auburn in week 2.

The former McMinn County High School standout still hadn’t found a role by his senior season. He was set back by an injury playing basketball, a car accident and then a broken leg, but he got the starting nod ahead of the Florida game because the two quarterbacks ahead of him were out with knee injuries. 

Pierce was making the most of it. After a couple of George Hunt field goals put Tennessee up 6-0, Pierce’s 35-yard run on a keeper set up a Curt Watson touchdown to stretch the Vols’ lead to 13-0 in the second quarter. 

The winless Gators didn’t go away, though. Willie Jackson scored to trim the Tennessee edge to 13-6 and a fumble on a handoff exchange between Pierce and Watson was recovered by Florida and paid off with John Reaves’ game-tying touchdown pass to Hank Foldberg Jr. just before halftime. 

Suddenly, the Vols were on their heels. The punt that enraged Battle put their backs against their own end zone with 62,000-plus fans virtually on top of them and a quarterback who hadn’t won a game since high school was going to be charged with getting them out of it. 

“I guess the biggest problem I had was being cool,” Pierce later admitted. 

If nerves were bearing down on Pierce, it didn’t show. His teammates bought in on the first drive when Pierce told Watson before rattling off a long run to “put that damn end on the ground. I’m running the ball.”

Pierce looked like a seasoned veteran all night, carrying the ball 18 times for 103 yards. He gave Tennessee some breathing room with a 4-yard run. Haskel Stanback carried for another eight yards and a first down on the second play. 

When the Vols faced third-and-8 a few plays later, Pierce used his arm on an 18-yard strike to Emmon Love. He kept the ball on the next three plays to reach the 35, then a 15-yard toss to Sonny Leach set Tennessee up at the 20. 

No throw was bigger than the one Pierce made to Trott on the final play of the drive that put the Vols up for good. 

“It looked like it mattered to Coach (Battle) and that made it matter to us,” Pierce said. “We decided in that huddle that we were coming off that goal line.”

The two teams traded turnovers in the final two minutes, but Eddie Brown intercepted Reaves’ final heave as time expired. 

There were a bevy of orange and white-clad heroes for Tennessee in the win. But Pierce’s personal comeback story, one of patience, perseverance and payoff was the headliner. His teammates made sure of it.

“Be sure to spell his name right,” Vols linebacker Jamie Rotella quipped to reporters.

“I’ve been saying he was a good football player since we were freshmen together,” fellow linebacker Ray Nettles added. 

Pierce, who was unable to go on the Vols’ final drive after getting banged up at the end of a 17-yard run late in the fourth, limped into the locker room and stood in front of the Tennessee press corps. 

“It sure was a longtime coming,” Pierce told them. “It’s been so long. But this one night makes it all worthwhile. I’m so glad I didn’t give up.”