(WBIR - Knoxville) On Saturday the Vols take on third-ranked Ole Miss in Oxford, Mississippi. This is the first time Tennessee will face an undefeated Ole Miss team in 52 years.
The 1962 Rebels rolled into Neyland Stadium and left with a victory en route to a perfect 10-0 record. But the 1962 season was far from perfect for Ole Miss. The game against Tennessee will mostly be remembered for a massive fight on the field. The entire 1962 season was overshadowed by fighting on the Oxford campus.
Web Extra Video: Full WBIR archive film of 1962 Ole Miss vs UT game
Arguably the greatest team in Ole Miss football history played in the shadow of the worst moment in Ole Miss history.
In September 1962, James Meredith became the first black student to enroll at the all-white University of Mississippi. Segregationists rallied and rioted at Ole Miss, killed two people execution style with gunshots to the head, and wounded 70 more people. United States marshals and the military eventually quelled the violence and took control of the campus.
While the Oxford campus became ground zero in the battle for civil rights, on the football field the Rebels tried to remain focused on finally fighting their way to a national championship. The three previous seasons, Ole Miss came one loss short of an undefeated regular season.
On November 17, 1962, the Rebels were undefeated with only two games left on the schedule. Ole Miss traveled to Tennessee as 10-point favorites against a Volunteer squad with a losing record. The stadium at Tennessee had only been renamed Neyland Stadium the prior month during an October game against Alabama.
Although Ole Miss was heavily favored, every trip to Knoxville was a fight. This one was especially dirty as heavy downpours turned Shields Watkins Field into a muddy mess.
Tennessee found some momentum and pounded its way down the field with a dominant drive against one of the best defenses in the country. On the goal line, the Vols fooled almost everyone with a play action fake to the right. UT's quarterback then rolled left, threw the ball in the end zone, and found the one person not fooled on the play. An Ole Miss defensive back picked off the pass three yards deep in the end zone and returned it 103 yards for a touchdown.
The victory was likely sealed at that point, but the fight was far from over.
Later in the game tensions flared and the sidelines cleared. The teams clashed and rumbled in the middle of the field. WBIR archive film footage shows players swinging helmets at each other. An Ole Miss player was thrown to the ground in the end zone and began kicking furiously into the air at a couple of Vols. The Rebel connected with a few kicks, and one of the UT players responded by turning and delivering a big boot to the Ole Miss player still on the ground.
Everyone was involved. A shot of the sidelines showed no players, only the raincoats they left on the ground as they ran to fight the Rebels. But one Tennessee supporter went on the field with a lethal piece of rain gear.
Former Tennessee player Mike LaSorsa, the senior captain of the Vols in 1960, ran on the field with a big wooden umbrella and started taking heavy swings at the Rebels. LaSorsa went on to a long successful career as a coach and teacher in Knox County, but the umbrella incident remained a tale that would be included in his obituary in 2011.
When the fight is finally over, the final score is Tennessee 6, Ole Miss 19. The Rebels perfect season is still intact.
Ole Miss went on to beat Mississippi State in the 1962 season finale. Then the Rebels won the Sugar Bowl to go undefeated.
However, there are no national championships for Ole Miss. The national voters choose undefeated Southern Cal as the champion. Some believe the championship snub was due to feeling that the national crown should not be sent to a campus that so publicly met desegregation with violence and death.
Saturday's game will mark a much more joyous occasion for the Vols to face a top-five undefeated Ole Miss team. Today a statue of James Meredith stands on the University of Mississippi campus. This week the Rebels play not in the shadow of violence, but arguably in the faint shadow of an in-state rival (top-ranked Mississippi State). It took more than half a century, but the national spotlight finally shines brightly on the state of Mississippi for their undefeated football teams rather than fighting.
