For decades, the Tennessee vs. Alabama football rivalry has ended with the winning team lighting up cigars to celebrate its victory.
The teams will meet for the 109th time when Tennessee (5-1, 2-1 SEC) hosts Alabama (5-1, 3-1) on Oct. 17 (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC). After the final whistle, the winning locker room will fill with cigar smoke, and fans will follow suit in the stands.
It's a staple of the Third Saturday in October rivalry and a badge of honor for the winning program each year.
After Tennessee beat Alabama in 2022, snapping a streak of 16 straight losses to the Crimson Tide, Tennessee coach Josh Heupel declared, "Everybody’s lighting a cigar tonight." He walked off the field triumphantly with a cigar in his mouth.
When "College GameDay" was in Knoxville earlier this season before Tennessee played Texas, legendary former Alabama coach Nick Saban, currently an analyst on the show, poked fun at the Vols fans for his success in the series. "I’m all-in on the University of Tennessee," he said, "because we smoked 16 out of 17 cigars when we played you all."
Why does the winner of Tennessee vs Alabama smoke cigars?
But how did the tradition of cigar smoking start? It dates back more than six decades to 1961, when Alabama trainer Jim Goostree — a UT alumnus — celebrated a 34-3 win for the Crimson Tide by passing out cigars to players and coaches in the locker room.
Tennessee adopted the tradition soon after and it evolved to symbolize a win over a bitter rival. The celebration sometimes starts on the field after a major win, like in 2022 and 2024, when Tennessee players lit up their cigars alongside the fans who stormed the field at Neyland Stadium.
The NCAA has banned tobacco on fields and in locker rooms since the 1990s, but the winning team is said to pay a small fine each year to keep the tradition alive.
Fans have adopted it, too, and Knoxville and Tuscaloosa always see major spikes in cigar sales during the week leading up to the game. Both campuses are technically smoke-free, but fans have plenty of creative ways to sneak their cigars into the stadium. A haze of smoke hovers over the stadium postgame from the thousands of cigars lit up in the stands.
Emmett Siegel covers Tennessee baseball for Knox News. Email: emmett.siegel@knoxnews.com; X: @EmmettSiegel_
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Here's why winner of Tennessee football vs Alabama smokes cigars after the game