Nashville History Corner

Litkenhous Football Guide and Sports Writer Edgar Allen

BY RIDLEY WILLS II

When I was in Parmer Grammar School and high school at MBA (1948-1952), I played football and basketball and followed Nashville high school and SEC football religiously.

In those years, Dr. Eddie Litkenhous, a Nashville mathematician, published each summer his Litkenhous Football Guide that had a big following in Middle Tennessee.

Annually, the guide provided the final national standings of college football teams for the previous fall, SEC football results for the previous fall, football rule changes, SEC schedules for the next fall, profiles of SEC and Nashville Interscholastic League (NIL) coaches, prep football guidelines for the following fall, as well as predicted NIL winners, the All-Nashville football team for the previous fall and ratings for all the national conferences. Sportswriter Edgar Allen usually wrote SEC and NIL predictions for each year. In the 1946 edition, the national champion for 1945 was Army, with Navy second, and Alabama third. The 1945 SEC coach of the year was Frank Thomas, of Alabama. His 1945 team, led by Harry Gilmer won the Rose Bowl over Southern California 24-14 was favored, in 1946, along with Tennessee and Georgia, to win the SEC championship that fall.

In 1946, Red Sanders was Vanderbilt’s coach, and Georgia Tech and Tulane were still in the SEC. The NIL had 21 teams in 1946 with the addition of Duncan and Hume-Fogg. Edgar Allen predicted that the probable NIL winner in 1946 would either be Cohn, MBA, TIS (Tennessee Industrial School) or Father Ryan.

Predicted stars for those teams were James and Arlie Hill of TIS, Billy Joe Earhart of MBA, Maxie Runion of Cohn and Jim Hagey of Father Ryan. The respective coaches for these schools were Joe Sills, Howard Allen, Elbert Anderson and Leo Long.