Robert Neyland: The West Point Engineer Who Built Tennessee Football

By Timothy D. Johnson

A celebration of coaching great Robert Neyland

Robert Neyland coached football for twenty-one seasons at the University of Tennessee and amassed a record of 173-31-12. He won seven conference titles and boasted full or partial claim to four national championships. His success resulted from his stern discipline and his ability to put together the most consistently dominant defenses in the first half of the 20th century.

The first biography in decades, Robert Neyland: The West Point Engineer Who Built Tennessee Football provides deep insight and first-hand accounts of Neyland's life and incredible career. Neyland was not your typical college football coach. He was a graduate of West Point and veteran of both world wars who rose to the rank of brigadier general while serving in the China, Burma, India Theater in World War II. During much of that time, he played a dual role as both army officer and football coach. Neyland shifted seamlessly between the two professions, using lessons learned in each to influence his leadership style in the other. As his players attested, Neyland ran his football program like the army.

Featuring interviews with the only living former players from the Neyland era, and including new insight from the Robert R. Neyland Family Papers, Robert Neyland will not only fascinate fans of University of Tennessee football, but sports and military historians, as well.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0FS26P5C5
• ISBN13: 9798216201724
• Release Date: July 2026
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.11 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"