ESPN is reporting that Monte Kiffin, current Defensive Coordinator of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, inventor of the Tampa 2 defensive scheme and as if that weren’t enough, father of presumptive coach Lane Kiffin, to follow his son to Tennessee (presumably as the new Defensive Coordinator).

Not just for shoes

This is huge news not only for Tennessee, but for Tampa Bay and Jon Gruden.  It seems that Tennessee would play a role in his life one way or the other this season, and it seems to have happened in the worst possible scenario for him.  Whereas the Bucs’ offenses have struggled at times, it was their defenses that kept them in many games (sound familiar?).

As far as for the University, this would be a coup the likes of which very few colleges have been able to stage without giving a coach a $4 million payola to leave the Dolphins their current team.  I just hope this will all actually turn out the way people are reporting, and it isn’t shockingly announced on Monday that in fact, Hal Mumme is the new Tennessee coach.

Should be an interesting 24 hours or so.

Congratulations to Phillip Fulmer on winning his final game at Tennessee against Kentucky.  I don’t really have anything snarky to say except, perhaps he should have told his team that every game was going to be his last game, and we would have won them all.

We’ll have a retrospective coming up at some point this week, so look out for that, and in the meantime, we’ll try to keep up on the news regarding the new coaches…

The Men’s basketball team played in the Semi-Finals against Georgetown and pulled out a gutsy and very exciting victory in a game in November that had all of the intensity and emotional swings as a game in late February or I don’t know, March?

Well, no one is offering an embeddable video, so here’s the link to the video at ESPN.  Feel free to not click it and instead go to UTSports.com and click on the highlights there to hear Roger W Hoover spit it out… Boom goes the dynamite.

The Vols, with the help of Cameron Tatum in the second half (and no help from Wayne Chism thanks to a couple of ticky tack foul calls), were able to rally from what almost became a double digit deficit, and ended up hanging 90 on the Hoyas which isn’t a really easy thing to do.

Next up, the BasketVols take on somebody 10th ranked Gonzaga in the Finals to be played on Sunday Night at 6:30 PM Eastern.

It’s for a duck! (obscure…)

Jon’s already talked about it, but I wanted to also throw out my public welcome for Lane Kiffin.  He’s a bit of a gamble for UT, but could be a great choice.  First and foremost, for MH, he comes on the cheap.  He doesn’t command a $4M salary like other coaches in the league, and there’s no nasty buy-out to get involved with.  Secondly, he’s a helluva recruiter, but I can’t say that Fulmer was so much worse.

If anything, I kinda look at Kiffin as our new head coach kinda like I look at Obama…maybe not the best overall, but if he brings a fresh face and can inject new found optimism in our little world, and for that, I’m grateful.  Also, it seems to prove that Mike Hamilton reads our blog.  We’ve been advocating for Kiffin since his firing.

So, not to poop on Fulmer too much on his big day, but we do wish all the best to the new coach.

And if you need a sprightly young assitant, you can give us a call.

Get it?  Kiff-IN?

Okay, well, we are sad, because well, our site is now stale in name and what not (unless a clemson blog wants to buy the name… email us), but we’re psyched about Lane Kiffin being the next coach.

First off, it seems like it’s probably the best gig for Kiffin, going to a big time school willing to spend the resources to win (unlike say, Washington), and say what you will, the guy can recruit, and Tennessee generally recruited well in California anywy, this will only help with the West Coast recruits.

It’ll be interesting to see how his staff shapes up, but if Orgeron could come in as a recruiting coordinator and/or Defensive coach of some type, well, Colonel Reb really would be cryin’.

People have said that he used Chow’s offensive playbook, well, that’s a pretty dang good playbook to use I think, and we’ll see if Kiffin can keep the streak alive with coaches being fired by Weird Al Davis going on to have awesome careers everywhere else.

I for one, welcome our new Kiffin Overlord.

Here it is…our preliminary ballot for the blogpoll.  Let us know what you think.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama	1
2	Florida	1
3	Oklahoma	3
4	Texas	1
5	Southern Cal	1
6	Texas Tech	5
7	Penn State	1
8	Utah	1
9	Ohio State	3
10	Boise State	1
11	Oklahoma State	4
12	Missouri	2
13	Georgia	2
14	Ball State	1
15	Cincinnati	4
16	Oregon State	8
17	Oregon	4
18	Georgia Tech	8
19	Boston College	7
20	TCU	6
21	Michigan State	7
22	Brigham Young	6
23	Florida State	3
24	West Virginia	2
25	Northwestern	–

It’s a little muddled at the top as Texas Tech managed to get blown away by Oklahoma.  That win was enough to put the Sooners ahead of Texas in our book for the number 3 slot.  Florida continues its case for the best 1 loss team in the nation and the title shot will be theirs to lose.  Utah had a nice showing, but I can’t help but think there’s still better teams out there.  Their demotion isn’t a reflection of their performance, but more that they’ve had an easier schedule.

I’m still a bit skeptical of the mid major teams in the poll with the exception of Utah.  I have no clue where to rank them for lack of any real comparison.

Anyway, if you see any errors, we’d love some input.

I can’t believe it.  We defeated a foe…on the road…that was projected to win?  I feel like I’m blogging about Tennessee basketball from the Buzz Peterson years.

Tennessee played extremely well despite the fact that everyone pretty much lined up at quarterback.  I’m not sure, but I think even Phil took a snap sometime in the third quarter.

All kidding aside, it was a nice win and a welcome change.  Coaching was at an all time high for the season as you could tell the folks calling the plays were avoiding the pass at all costs.  I even like how the Raycom guys were astute enough to point out that anytime anyone not named BJ or Jonathan lined up at QB, Vandy just went to the punt block formation and shut down the run.  At what point did we think we were fooling someone?  “Zomg…dude…try the G-Gun again…they won’t expect the run this time!”

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to next week’s game, which will sadly be Fulmer’s last.  I wish the man the best, and I really hope he goes out undefeated against Kentucky.  As for his strategy this game, it was a great decision to avoid the air against Vandy, but I don’t think he can take that philosophy and make it work against Kentucky.  The nice thing is that Kentucky has an awful defense, and if necessary, I think we can get it done on the ground, but it may depend on Foster staying healthy and not giving up the ball.  I’d love to see him get the yards to pass Travis Henry in the record books and put him farther out of our minds (because say what you might, Travis Henry is still the most embarrassing thing Tennessee football has seen in the last few years).

Anyway, it was a good win and very welcome.  I think it’ll carry through to next week, so everyone get out there and pay Fulmer the respect he deserves for his last game.

He’s earned every bit of it.