HistoryBuc football from 1920 to now
Every era, in order
1920
The first team
East Tennessee State Normal School put a team on the field in 1920. It played five games, two of them against local high schools. The school colors, navy blue and old gold, had been picked nine years earlier. W.R. Windes coached the first two seasons.
1925 to 1931
The Teachers
A new name, East Tennessee State Teachers College, gave the players their first nickname: the Teachers. John Robinson coached for five seasons. In 1930 the school was renamed again, this time State Teachers College, Johnson City.
1932 to 1946
Gene McMurray
McMurray took over in 1932 and stayed ten straight seasons. His teams won the Smoky Mountain Conference in 1938, and in 1935 the team became the Buccaneers. Football stopped during the Second World War. McMurray came back for 1946, and no Buc coach has a better winning percentage than his over those eleven seasons.
1952 to 1965
Star Wood and the Burley Bowl
Star Wood coached thirteen seasons, 1952 and 1953, then 1955 through 1965, and his 64 wins are still the most of any Buc coach. From 1952 to 1956 the team played in five straight Burley Bowls and won three. East Tennessee State College joined the Ohio Valley Conference in 1957 and became a university in 1963.
1969
Ten wins, no losses
John Robert Bell's 1969 team went 10-0-1, won the Ohio Valley title and then beat Louisiana Tech in the Grantland Rice Bowl in Baton Rouge. The Louisiana Tech quarterback was Terry Bradshaw.
1977 to 2002
The Mini-Dome years
The Memorial Center opened in 1977, and football moved indoors under its roof, which everyone called the Mini-Dome. The school joined the Southern Conference at the end of the decade. In 1987 the Bucs won 29-14 at NC State. In 1996 Mike Cavan's team went 10-3 and reached the I-AA playoffs for the first time, beating Villanova 35-29 at home. In 2001 they beat a No. 1 team for the first time: Georgia Southern, 19-16.
2003
The shutdown
The university ended the program for financial reasons. The last game was at home on November 22 against The Citadel, won 16-13 with a field goal as time ran out. ETSU also left the Southern Conference.
2004 to 2014
No team
Eleven seasons without a schedule. A supporters' group, the Buc Football and Friends Foundation, kept pressing for football and the marching band to return. On January 29, 2013, the Student Government Association voted 22-5 for a $125 per semester fee to fund football along with the women's sports Title IX requires. The Tennessee Board of Regents approved it on March 29, and on May 30 the school accepted an invitation back into the Southern Conference.
2015 to 2017
Carl Torbush rebuilds
Torbush signed the first recruiting class in 2014. The return game, against Kennesaw State on September 3, 2015, sold out. The Bucs went 2-9 that year as an FCS independent, then 5-6 in 2016 back in the Southern Conference, beating Kennesaw State, Western Carolina at Bristol Motor Speedway in front of the biggest crowd in program history, and 18th-ranked Samford. In 2017 the team moved into the new William B. Greene Jr. Stadium on campus. Torbush retired after that season with an 11-22 record.
2018 onward
Randy Sanders and after
Randy Sanders, a former Florida State offensive coordinator, won his first game 28-7 over Mars Hill in 2018. On September 4, 2021, the Bucs beat Vanderbilt 23-3, their first win over an FBS team since 1987, and the season ended in the FCS quarterfinals against North Dakota State.
The gap
Eleven seasons is a long time for a stadium to stay dark. It was not long enough for Johnson City to forget.
Leagues over the years
| Years | Conference |
|---|---|
| 1920 to 1929 | Independent |
| 1930 to 1941 | Smoky Mountain Conference |
| 1946 to 1948 | Independent |
| 1949 to 1957 | Volunteer State Athletic Conference |
| 1957 to 1978 | Ohio Valley Conference |
| 1979 to 2003 | Southern Conference |
| 2004 to 2014 | No team |
| 2015 | FCS independent |
| 2016 on | Southern Conference |
Where they play
4 photographs
