How Tennessee stopped Billy Cannon, toppled LSU 66 years ago

The glass Coke bottle rattled in Jim Cartwright’s hand.

Moments after Tennessee had toppled No. 1 and defending national champion LSU, the Vols’ blocking back was still shaking.

Cartwright was one of Tennessee’s heroes in its 14-13 triumph on Nov. 7, 1959, and an unlikely one. Just as the Tigers were about to apply the dagger, he stepped in front of a Warren Rabb pass, then ran it back 59 yards for a touchdown to bring Shields-Watkins Field—and the Vols—back to life.

“Look at my hand,” the elated Cartwright told newsmen inside the Vols’ locker room. “I’m so nervous right now, I can hardly hold this bottle.”

Somewhere among the pandemonium were the three other heroes: Charlie Severance, Bill Majors and Wayne Grubb. On LSU’s two-point gamble to take the lead, the three stuffed Billy Cannon in a titanic clash at the goal line that all but ended the Tigers’ hopes of a second-straight national title and a 19-game win streak that dated back to 1957.

“Tennessee’s conquest of the Louisiana State Legions must go down as one of the fantastic football victories in the all-time history of Volunteer campaigning,” Knoxville News-Sentinel sports editor Tom Siler wrote.

Just before Cartwright came streaking down the field and into Tennessee football lore, the homecoming crowd of 47,000 at the Vols’ home field were silent. There hadn’t been much to cheer about to that point.

One week earlier, Cannon, who went on to win the Heisman Trophy, all but secured the award when he broke off a late 89 yard punt return for a touchdown to beat No. 3 Ole Miss at Tiger Stadium, 7-3 on Halloween night.

Tennessee blanked No. 3 Auburn, 3-0 in its season opener and beat Mississippi State the following week, but had its own prospects of an SEC or national championship dashed with a one-score loss to third-ranked Georgia Tech and a 7-7 draw at No. 14 Alabama.

The Vols re-entered the polls after routing Chattanooga, and then moved up to No. 13 with a convincing road win over North Carolina. But LSU and its heralded defense, which hadn’t even up a touchdown in eight-straight games known as the “Chinese Bandits,” were the heavy favorites going to Knoxville.

The game had been circled on Tennessee’s schedule for months. The Vols had never beaten a No. 1 team and it was the most anticipated match up on their home turf since Robert R. Neyland was stalking the sidelines the day they beat Bear Bryant’s third-ranked Kentucky team nearly a decade earlier.

Signs were posted all over Tennessee’s campus that read, “LSU, who are you? You won’t be the first when the Vols get through!”

There was reason for Tennessee to be optimistic. It had already slayed one Goliath in Auburn, which was riding a college football-best 24-game win streak before the Vols knocked those Tigers off of their pedestal.

On Shields-Watkins Field as cold November winds swept across the Tennessee River and through the empty stadium following the Vols’ final rehearsal that Friday, Tennessee head coach Bowden Wyatt told reporters, “We are just as ready as you can get.”

All of the build-up might have felt like it was crashing down the moment Cannon went off-tackle for a 26-yard touchdown to go up 7-0 on LSU’s second drive.

The Tigers’ streak of keeping teams out of the end zone swelled to 40 quarters at halftime, and Cannon put them right back into position when he returned the opening kickoff of the third quarter with a 35-yard run.

Rabb passed for 21 yards and Cannon went up the middle for another 15 before he was brought down at the Vols’ 13-yard line. The drive reached the 5 before stalling out and Dietzel had to choose between going for the knockout punch or the field goal.

He settled on the field goal, but Wendell Harris missed again, this time from point-blank range. Tennessee’s grip on hope hadn’t slipped yet, but it started to again when LSU was back in Tennessee territory.

As Rabb dropped back to pass and eyed Johnny Robinson as he ran into the flat, Cartwright remembered one of the film sessions earlier in the week. He had seen it unfold before.

“I smelled it,” Cartwright recalled to intrigued reporters, jotting down his account on notepads. “We worked on that sort of thing a lot last week. I had a notion (LSU) might be getting ready to try it…It’s sort of a safety-valve pass they use when the deep man is covered.

“The quarterback usually flips it out there pretty quick after he has been looking down field. It gives you a chance to anticipate it a little bit.”

Rabb saw Robinson, but he didn’t see Cartwright. By the time that he did, Cartwright was running the other way.

Teammates Mike LaSorsa and Cotton Letner threw the blocks that provided Cartwright with a clear path for the game-tying score and Tennessee suddenly had the jolt that it needed.

“A team that appeared beaten, that had never threatened, that seemed unable to muffle Billy Cannon or stop Johnny Robinson suddenly rose up and appeared to be 10-feet tall,” Siler penned. “And a new and sparkling chapter of Tennessee football was going into a book crammed with gaudy conquests.”

For the first time on that chilly afternoon, LSU seemed mortal.

Right back on the field, the Vols’ defense came through again, this time knocking the ball from the hands of Tigers’ fullback Earl Gros. Ken Sadler jumped on top of it at the LSU 29.

Glenn Glass, one play after being tossed for a four-yard loss, darted a pass to Don Leake to the 14. It set up Neyle Sollee’s run through a gaping hole on the left side and into the end zone for a 14-7 Tennessee lead.

One fan leapt from the student section on the north end of Shields-Watkins Field to greet Sollee after scoring, putting both arms around the fullback before police officers rushed in and escorted him out of the stadium.

But jubilation gave way again to tension after the ball off an LSU punt bounced by Majors and hit his shoulder. It rolled to the Tennessee 2 where Ed McCreedy ran it down to put the Tigers on the doorstep.

Backup quarterback Durel Matherne scored on a keeper and LSU was one point away from the tie at 14-13. As Harris ran onto the field for the extra point, Dietzel waved him back. He wanted to go for the win, and he was going to leave it up to his best player.

The play call was a familiar one. Cannon went off tackle to the right, then cut back inside. Severance and Grubb met him around the goal line, holding him up there. 

Cannon kept moving, churning his legs and powering towards the end zone as Severance and Grubb pushed back.

Just as he was making some ground, Majors came flying in, crashing into Cannon’s shoulder and knocking him back to finish off a goal line stand for the ages.

“Stopping Billy Cannon is like stopping a Whirlaway,” Wyatt said. “It was a great demonstration of defensive morale and courage that saved us.”

LSU got another chance, but wasn’t able to get as close after blocking a Tennessee punt. The Tigers drove to the 12, then Cannon fumbled on a botched exchange with Matherne and the Vols recovered.

Fans poured onto the field and rushed to Cartwright, who was lifted on the shoulders of teammates and paraded around. As it unfolded, Cannon dashed for the visitor’s tunnel.

Cannon later said that he “will go to my grave believing I was over” on the two-point try, but he didn’t contest it when reporters pressed him inside the LSU locker room.

“If you fellows don’t mind, I’d rather not say anything,” he said. “I just don’t feel up to it.”

Across the field, Tennessee players had plenty to say in their own locker room as they sipped on Coca-Cola in between chants and cheers.

“We could have played on Tuesday,” Wyatt said. “In fact, they got so high early in the week that we had to cool ‘em down.”

“I told you we were going to beat those fellas,” Severance added. “We just felt that it could be done.”