Jim Tatum
James M. "Big Jim" Tatum (July 22, 1913 – July 23, 1959) was an American football and baseball player and coach. Tatum served as the head football coach at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1942, 1956–1958), the University of Oklahoma (1946), and the University of Maryland, College Park (1947–1955), compiling a career college football record of 100–35–7. His 1953 Maryland team won a national title. As a head coach, he employed the split-T formation with great success, a system he had learned as an assistant under Don Faurot at the Iowa Pre-Flight School during World War II. Tatum was also the head baseball coach at Cornell University from 1937 to 1939, tallying a mark of 20–40–1. Tatum's career was cut short by his untimely death in 1959. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1984.
1951 Maryland Terrapins football team
In the first quarter, Ed Modzelewski rushed 16 yards for the opening touchdown. Maryland scored three more touchdowns on each of its subsequent possessions. Lloyd Colteryahn caught a ten-yard pass from Scarbath for the fifth and final Terrapins' touchdown of the first half. In the second, Maryland scored 19 unanswered points, which culminated in a 77-yard run by Joe Horning.
"The Washington Post" called the 1952 Sugar Bowl the second "game of the century," with the first having been between the undefeated Army and Notre Dame teams in 1946. The Associated Press called it possibly "the greatest bowl game of them all." Tennessee was a period powerhouse and its roster included five All-Americans. Maryland was viewed as a heavy underdog going into the game. Terrapins halfback Chet Hanulak said, "Nobody expected us to get that far. But Jim Tatum was a coach who could work wonders." After mechanical issues delayed Maryland's flight, the team became the first to practice at night for a Sugar Bowl. Tatum said, "[Tennessee is] so much better than we are that they probably don't need the practice. But we do—and we'll get it."
Tennessee was led by triple-threat quarterback and Heisman runner-up Hank Lauricella. Head coach Neyland's offensive linemen were described as not large but "squatty" and "bruiser[s], not flashy, but slightly murderous." Neyland considered the split-T offense used by Tatum gimmicky and relied on the more traditional single-wing formation. He subscribed to the adage that, when the ball was thrown, "three things could happen, and two of them were bad." For the game, Tatum himself abandoned the split-T in favor of a smashmouth approach to run it up the middle, where he thought "they least expected [it]." Neyland's strategy focused heavily on punting the ball to pin the opponent in their own territory with a goal of creating turnovers, and Tatum likewise adopted it.