How Larry Seivers saved the Vols against Auburn in 1975

Ron McCartney stood on top of a bench on the west side of Neyland Stadium. 

The Tennessee defensive end watched anxiously as Randy Wallace darted a pass 26 yards down the field. 

The Vols were down to their last couple of chances with a little over six minutes left in the fourth quarter against Auburn on Sept. 27, 1975. The second down heave from Wallace narrowly missed the out-stretched hand of Tigers’ defensive back Raymond Phagen. Larry Seivers was behind him. 

The 6-foot-4 Seivers, who starred just up the road at nearby Clinton High School, caught the ball in stride. Phagen never saw him. At least not until he was running into the end zone to give Tennessee the lead—for good.

The Vols’ 21-17 triumph of the Tigers and the Seivers’ masterclass that made it happen was a highlight in a season that ultimately played to mixed reviews. 

“It was beautiful,” McCartney recalled to reporters, still in awe of Seivers’ heroics. “I thought about running out there and kissing Seivers on the mouth, but I wasn’t sure how he’d take that.”

“Seivers is the best receiver I’ve ever coached against at Tennessee,” a more frustrated Auburn head coach Ralph “Shug” Jordan, who was set to retire at the end of the season, told the sporting press. “That includes Richmond Flowers and all the rest. I don’t think Tennessee has ever had a better pass receiver.”

It wasn’t the first time Seivers came from out of seemingly nowhere to snag a ball away from an unsuspecting secondary. It wasn’t even the first that afternoon. 

Nine months earlier, Seivers caught the only touchdown late in Tennessee’s 7-3 win over Maryland in the Liberty Bowl to cap the 1974 season. His leaping catch from Condredge Holloway paid off Bill Battle’s gusty game-winning two-point conversion to beat Clemson that same season. 

In the Vols’ third game of their 1975 campaign, which opened with a thumping of Maryland and a one-score loss to UCLA at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Seivers was masterful. 

He totaled six catches for 109 yards and two scores–including the game winner–with three of his receptions coming on third down on that go-ahead drive. 

“Auburn tuned in late to the Larry Seivers Show,” Marvin West penned for the Knoxville News-Sentinel. “Everybody knows it comes on third down at Tennessee.”

Maybe it was Wallace’s decision to throw to Seivers on second down instead of third that caught the Auburn secondary off guard. Regardless, the Vols had finally come out of a Tennessee-Auburn thriller on the winning side. 

Four years before on the same turf, the Vols had the then-No.5 Tigers beat, in position for a signature early-season victory in head coach Bill Battle’s second season.

Tennessee was up 9-3 and on the doorstep of putting the game away until a fumble breathed new life into Auburn. 

The Tigers went 86 yards in 10 plays for the deciding score to escape with a 10-9 win that was part of a three-game losing skid for the Vols in the series. They flipped the script with Seivers.

“You live by the sword, as they say, and you die by the sword,” the News-Sentinel’s Tom Siler wrote. “And this was Auburn’s turn to die.”

As for what set the stage in the 1975 edition of the annual bout between the two schools, it was the Tigers who struck first when Kenny Burks ended an eight-play, 54-yard drive when he powered across the goal line to go up 7-0 in the first quarter.

Tennessee had a rousing response, for a moment. Stanley Morgan’s 73-yard punt return for a touchdown was called back for a block below the waist. A few plays later came third down, and Auburn knew where Wallace was going with it. It didn’t matter.

Wallace rainbowed a pass towards the 5 where two Auburn defenders stood waiting. Seivers was there, too. He outjumped everyone around him, snagged the ball out of the air, landed on both feet, turned around and waltzed into the end zone. 

Tennessee had drawn even.

“The pass looked like one of those doves I winged last year,” Jordan said. “A guy in the nickel seats could have batted it down. Only Seivers would make that play.”

Tennessee took the lead on a Wallace touchdown run from the 3 in the second quarter, but Auburn took control in the third the old fashioned way. The Tigers attempted just four passes and completed one because they had the Vols’ defense on their heels running the ball for much of the second half. 

That approach allowed Auburn to knot the score at 14-14 after Burks gashed the defense for another touchdown. 

Tennessee did come with one stop when it needed it most, though. With its back to the goal line and the Tigers on the cusp of possibly putting the Vols away, Steve Poole dragged down Auburn quarterback Phil Gargis for a loss. Andy Spiva snuffed out a pitch that ended in another loss the following play. The Tigers settled for a Niel O’Donoghue field goal to take a 17-14 lead, but the stand loomed large the rest of the way. 

Another stop forced another field goal attempt in the fourth quarter, but O’Donoghue was off-target from 50 yards out. Even if he nailed it, it wouldn’t have been enough.

On Tennessee’s make-or-break drive, Wallace linked up with Seivers four times, none bigger than the one he scored on for the lead. 

“It was a perfect throw,” Seivers told reporters. “I didn’t see anybody near the ball. I never see such things. When the ball is thrown, I concentrate on it. I don’t see or hear anything else.”

As the Vols celebrated in the locker room, Battle quieted the room for a few moments, holding a football in his hand. He extended it towards Seivers. 

Seivers took it, then handed it off to Tim Fitchpatrick and John Yarbrough—the two other receivers in the room. 

“They could have done the same thing,” Seivers said.