Johnny Vaught
Vaught in 1947
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| Sport(s) | Football |
|---|---|
| Biographical details | |
| Born | May 6, 1909 Olney, Texas, U.S. |
| Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. Oxford, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Playing career | |
| 1930–1932 | TCU |
| Position(s) | Guard |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
| 1936–1941 | North Carolina (line) |
| 1942 | North Carolina Pre-Flight (assistant) |
| 1946 | Ole Miss (assistant) |
| 1947–1970 | Ole Miss |
| 1973 | Ole Miss (Interim) |
| Administrative career (AD unless noted) | |
| 1973–1978 | Ole Miss |
| Head coaching record | |
| Overall | 190–61–12 |
| Bowls | 10–8 |
| Statistics | |
| Accomplishments and honors | |
| Championships | |
| 3 National (1959–1960, 1962) 6 SEC (1947, 1954–1955, 1960, 1962–1963) |
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| Awards | |
| 6x SEC Coach of the Year (1947–1948, 1954–1955, 1960, 1962) | |
| College Football Hall of Fame Inducted in 1979 (profile) |
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John Howard "Johnny" Vaught (May 6, 1909 – February 3, 2006) was an American college football player, coach, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) from 1947 to 1970 and again in 1973.
Born in Olney, Texas, Vaught graduated as valedictorian from Polytechnic High School in Fort Worth, Texas and attended Texas Christian University (TCU), where he was an honor student and was named an All-American in 1932. Vaught served as a line coach at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill under head coach Raymond Wolf from 1936 until 1941. In 1942, Vaught served as an assistant coach with the North Carolina Pre-Flight School.[1] After serving in World War II as a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy, he took a job as an assistant coach at Ole Miss in 1946, and was named head coach a year later. After winning the university's first conference title in his initial season in 1947, he led the Rebels to additional Southeastern Conference titles in 1954, 1955, 1960, 1962, and 1963.
Vaught is the only coach in Ole Miss history to win an SEC football championship. His 1960 team finished 10-0-1 and was the only major-conference team to go undefeated on the field that year. As a result, it won a share of the national championship; it was awarded the Grantland Rice Award from the Football Writers Association of America after the bowl games. In those days, the wire services crowned their national champion before the bowl games. It is very likely that Ole Miss would have finished atop one poll, if not both, had they been taken after the bowl games as they are today.
Vaught took Ole Miss to 18 bowl games, winning 10 times including five victories in the Sugar Bowl. Only two coaches held a winning record against Vaught: Paul "Bear" Bryant, with a record of 7 wins, 6 losses, and 1 tie against Vaught, and Robert Neyland holding a 3 win to two loss advantage.
Vaught's overall record at Ole Miss was 190 wins 61 losses and 12 ties, far and away the most in school history. Ole Miss ranked 9th in all-time Southeastern Conference football standings when Vaught arrived. When he retired in 1970, Ole Miss had moved up to third, behind only Alabama and Tennessee. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1979. In 1982, Ole Miss revised the name of its football stadium from Hemingway Stadium to Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in his honor. On February 3, 2006, Vaught died at the age of 96 in Oxford, Mississippi.
Head coaching record
| Year | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Bowl/playoffs | Coaches# | AP° | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ole Miss Rebels (Southeastern Conference) (1947–1970) | |||||||||
| 1947 | Ole Miss | 9–2 | 6–0 | 1st | W Delta | 13 | |||
| 1948 | Ole Miss | 8–1 | 6–1 | 2nd | 15 | ||||
| 1949 | Ole Miss | 4–5–1 | 2–4 | 9th | |||||
| 1950 | Ole Miss | 5–5 | 1–5 | 11th | |||||
| 1951 | Ole Miss | 6–3–1 | 4–2–1 | T–3rd | |||||
| 1952 | Ole Miss | 8–1–2 | 4–0–2 | 3rd | L Sugar | 7 | 7 | ||
| 1953 | Ole Miss | 7–2–1 | 4–1–1 | T–2nd | |||||
| 1954 | Ole Miss | 9–2 | 5–0 | 1st | L Sugar | 6 | 6 | ||
| 1955 | Ole Miss | 10–1 | 5–1 | 1st | W Cotton | 9 | 10 | ||
| 1956 | Ole Miss | 7–3 | 4–2 | 4th | |||||
| 1957 | Ole Miss | 9–1–1 | 5–0–1 | 2nd | W Sugar | 8 | 7 | ||
| 1958 | Ole Miss | 9–2 | 3–2 | 3rd | W Gator | 12 | 11 | ||
| 1959 | Ole Miss | 10–1 | 5–1 | T–2nd | W Sugar | 2 | 2 | ||
| 1960 | Ole Miss | 10–0–1 | 5–0–1 | 1st | W Sugar | 3 | 2 | ||
| 1961 | Ole Miss | 9–2 | 4–1 | 3rd | L Cotton | 5 | 5 | ||
| 1962 | Ole Miss | 10–0 | 6–0 | 1st | W Sugar | 3 | 3 | ||
| 1963 | Ole Miss | 7–1–2 | 5–0–1 | 1st | L Sugar | 7 | 7 | ||
| 1964 | Ole Miss | 5–5–1 | 2–3–1 | 7th | L Bluebonnet | 20 | |||
| 1965 | Ole Miss | 7–4 | 5–3 | 4th | W Liberty | 17 | |||
| 1966 | Ole Miss | 8–3 | 5–2 | 4th | L Bluebonnet | 12 | |||
| 1967 | Ole Miss | 6–4–1 | 3–2–1 | T–6th | L Sun | ||||
| 1968 | Ole Miss | 7–3–1 | 3–2–1 | 5th | W Liberty | ||||
| 1969 | Ole Miss | 8–3 | 4–2 | 5th | W Sugar | 13 | 8 | ||
| 1970 | Ole Miss | 7–4 | 4–2 | 4th | L Gator | 20 | |||
| Ole Miss Rebels (Southeastern Conference) (1973) | |||||||||
| 1973 | Ole Miss | 5–3[n 1] | 4–3 | 3rd | |||||
| Ole Miss: | 190–61–12 | 106–39–10 | |||||||
| Total: | 190–61–12 | ||||||||
| National championship Conference title Conference division title | |||||||||
| #Rankings from final Coaches Poll. °Rankings from final AP Poll. |
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Notes
- ↑ Billy Kinard coached the first three games, all non-conference, of the 1973 season before he was fired. Vaught replaced Kinard and coached Ole Miss for the final eight games of the season. The Rebels finished 6–5 overall.
References
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
External links
- 1909 births
- 2006 deaths
- American football guards
- North Carolina Pre-Flight Cloudbusters football coaches
- North Carolina Tar Heels football coaches
- Ole Miss Rebels athletic directors
- Ole Miss Rebels football coaches
- TCU Horned Frogs football players
- All-American college football players
- College Football Hall of Fame inductees
- American military personnel of World War II
- Sportspeople from Fort Worth, Texas
- People from Young County, Texas
- Players of American football from Texas
