The year was 1917, and what was then known as the Georgia School of Technology had a bit of a journeyman coaching its football and baseball teams. Starting in 1904, John Heisman began what would be his longest tenure at any of the eight schools he’d coached at by career’s end.
The Golden Tornados had been playing football since 1892, and had been a member of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association since the 1894 season. The SIAA is the grandfather to today’s Southeastern Conference and the father to today’s (now FCS) Southern Conference.
Now thought of as the most dominant alliance in college football, in 1917 not only had the SIAA never had a national powerhouse… no team in the Southeast had ever won a title.