KNOXVILLE - There has been much talk lately in the wake of Coach Bruce Pearl's great success with the rejuvenated University of Tennessee men's basketball program and the seventh national championship for Coach Pat Head Summitt's Lady Vols about how basketball has supplanted football as "the" sport on campus. Admittedly, I have gotten caught up in that talk, too, as I'm very passionate about UT basketball, but I remember that Coach Ray Mears, the greatest Vol basketball coach ever, always had a twinkle in his eye about Tennessee football as well, and he knew what it meant on The Hill. So when you make the trek to Neyland Stadium Saturday for college football's greatest gameday, remember these things...

Tennessee football is the 30-year-old couple coming back to campus for the season's opening game for the first time since they graduated together from UT, with both their little ones in tow. One of the kids wears her orange and white cheerleader outfit; the other wears his #16 jersey, even though he's too young to understand why.

Tennessee football is the 50-year-old man like me who hopes no one sees tears in his eyes when the "T" is formed by the Pride of the Southland Band. He is too choked up even to sing "Rocky Top." For a moment, he feels foolish, and then he doesn't care, and the tears flow freely down his cheeks, as he realizes how much he loves this place called the Tennessee campus and how special it really and truly is.

Tennessee football is the 60-year-old woman meeting her freshman granddaughter on campus, who now represents the third generation of UT students in the family. Despite her age, she'd strap it on Saturday and hit someone if it weren't for her gender and her blasted arthritis.

Tennessee football fans have always believed they are different, and they are. You can see it when you look up into the 100,000+ seats in the newly-refurbished historic stadium. Our Big Orange is not the same as Florida's or Auburn's. But the differences go much deeper than our colors.

Read the Tennessee football creed. What other school has one? We genuinely believe in those things. To be a real Tennessee man or woman speaks of character, not of geography. All are welcome to walk though our gates, not just the wealthy or the elite.

Georgia and Alabama may have their nations, but we have always been family. Make no mistake, we loathe losing, but even in defeat, we would rather be a Tennessee Volunteer than anyone or anything else.

Tennesseans are family, the sons of Majors and Neyland. We come from a long line of brothers whose names include White, Gault, Wilson, Manning, Shuler, Nash, and Mahelona. It is a great heritage.

So this Saturday, when the warm-ups are over, when the prayers and amen are spoken, something you rarely hear in stadiums anywhere else but always hear at UT, when you hear the thunder growing in the stands above you, when you stand in the tunnel and the smoke begins to form....listen for the Voice of Tennessee football when the gladiators, our players, run onto Shields-Watkins Field. Behind the frenzy of the shakers and deafening roar, Tennessee football's Voice will tell you something in a whisper that you may miss. It will be telling us that we are its sons and daughters,  and that it is proud of us for the way we wear the Big Orange and White to the stadium and to work and to church and everywhere we go. It will be telling us that we are the beloved sons and daughters of Tennessee football and that we are loved for that.

Tennessee football is so much more than a state or a school or a team or a degree. It's something that, once you have experienced it, will live inside of you forever and become a part of what makes up who you are.

It's driving into town on gameday. You may have come from hundreds of miles away, but as you get closer and closer to the Knoxville city limits, you feel it rising inside of you, the emotion of it all. You will see other vehicles on the highway proudly displaying their Big Orange and White flags or magnets or car tags, and you honk and wave at them, because, for that one day, and indeed every day, you are all on the same team.

It's the smell in the air and the ritualistic act of tailgating...catching up with old friends, making new ones, and the invitations from perfect strangers to try their ribs or watch their satellite TV showing all of the day's important match-ups...of course, all being secondary to the one that will occur in the great cathedral of Neyland Stadium later that day.

It's the Vol Walk...where you might just see men weighing upwards of 300 pounds overcome with emotion and weeping with pride, because their fans have come there to cheer them on. As they walk by, you might exchange a glance with one or two of them, and you can see it in their eyes...it's going to be their day.

It's the students...dressed in their best, because going to a Tennessee game is like going to church for Tennessee people....you show the same respect you would as if you were in God's house. Those students remind us of the days when we were walking in their shoes and the Tennessee campus was our home...but then we realize that, in many ways, it's still is, and always will be, HOME to us.

It's that lump that rises in your throat when the band plays Rocky Top as the "T" is formed. That's after the lump that you've already felt when the band marched through the entire campus and culminated that march with its traditional "Salute to The Hill," before entering the stadium.

It's walking around on "foreign" and sometimes hostile campuses on the road. We are easily identified, as Tennessee people always are, and the enemy jeers and shouts things at us to mask their feelings of intimidation. But just then we happen upon friends we've never met before. We know they're our friends by the colors they wear or the shakers in their hands. We exchange a "Go Vols!" and a confident grin, because he or she knows what we know.

It's when our hearts leap with every touchdown, field goal, sack, or interception...because those are our boys. And win or lose, they will always have our undying support. After all, it's those boys that we're really there for, not for a coach or a logo or a trustee or a president.

It's the complete and utter exhilaration of walking away victorious over a worthy opponent...that feeling of pride and accomplishment as if it were our own feet that had crossed the goal line scoring the last points ourselves...that feeling of wanting to scream "Go Big Orange!" at the top of our lungs and hug complete strangers...and then that ultimate high of defeating our most hated foes from across the state or a neighboring state.

No words can truly describe what this feels like. The only ones that know the feeling are those that have really have experienced it themselves.

It's the sheer agony of defeat as the last minutes tick off of the clock and we realize that all hope of a victory is gone. We feel like crying and maybe we do...then we hear the faint sounds of a cheer that grows louder and louder...."It's Great To Be A Tennessee Vol!"

It's knowing that year after year, no matter how things change in our hectic lives, we can always come back to the Tennessee River...the place where we all came from...our home. It will probably look a little different and there will be new names on the backs of the jerseys, but deep down, no matter what, it's still the same. We still love it as much as we always have, because Tennessee's as much a part of us as our arms and our legs and the Big Orange blood that runs through our veins.

And, finally, it's the feeling we each have right now as we read these lines....the anticipation inside of us, because we know it's almost time...It's almost THAT time...It's about to start all over again...but then it really never goes away, does it?

IT'S ALMOST FOOTBALL TIME IN TENNESSEE! GO BIG ORANGE!

A SPECIAL TRIBUTE TO TENNESSEE BASKETBALL COACH RAY MEARS
By John Mark Hancock
Copyrighted - All Rights Reserved

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

When I heard early yesterday afternoon that Coach Ray Mears had passed away into eternity at a nursing home in Knoxville at age 80, my mind raced back over 40 years to the first time I ever met him as a wide-eyed UT fan when I was just nine years old. That was my first exposure to Big Orange basketball, in 1966, the year that his Tennessee Volunteers basketball team beat the Kentucky Wildcats at Stokely Athletics Center to end the season in a rousing way, 69-62.

It was that game that got me hooked on UT basketball. I had no idea at the time that it would come to be such a big part of my life, and that the head coach of that team, his 4th in 15 seasons at the Vol helm, would come to have such a big influence on me as an individual.

My Dad took me to cavernous Stokely to watch those 1960's games in which Mears battled the legendary Baron of Bluegrass, Adolph Rupp. Ray became the only coach in basketball history to finish with at least a .500 record against Kentucky that had coached against them as many games as he had (15-15). No one else did better over time challenging UK.

As the years went on, I became at usher in the Orange Tie Club section at Stokely when I was in junior high. I got to meet all of the major supporters of the program Mears was building. When I started school at UT early, after graduating from high school in two years, I worked part-time as a Sports Information intern with men's basketball, helping Haywood Harris with media days and traveling on the road with the team in the famous Ernie and Bernie days, still the Golden Age of UT basketball.

In those days, the SEC schedule had you go on the road for a Saturday-Monday two-game road trip. We would leave on Friday afternoon on a chartered jet and wouldn't get back home until early Tuesday morning. I helped John Ward do statistics sometimes on the radio. I especially remember a game in Alligator Alley at Florida that was exciting.

Since there wasn't much to do in places like Starkville and Auburn on Sundays, I got to know the players, coaches, administrators, etc., very well, spending time with and eating all my meals with them. Coach Mears always insisted that the team go to church on Sundays on the road. He also wanted to find something for them to do to keep busy on Sunday afternoons, too.

Coach had me go scout around town in Starkville one weekend to find an event. When I came back and reported that a rodeo was in town, he ordered the team bus to pick us up and take us there to get everyone relaxed and keep their mind off the intense basketball game they had ahead on Monday night.

Most of all, I remember that Coach Mears was intense. His fiery eyes flashed, darted, and twinkled. He never lost that intensity and never lost those unique eyes as long as he lived.

Ray saw to it that the Tennessee basketball program went first class. He was as classy a man as I've ever known. He told us that we would stay in the best hotels, eat at the best restaurants, order the best thing on the menu, and ride in the best transportation.

However, he made it clear that all of us on all of those trips were to conduct ourselves as first class citizens, too. He told us before every trip that we were expected to be ambassadors not only representing ourselves and our families and The University of Tennessee, but also the entire State of Tennessee. He made it clear that if we did anything that reflected badly on any of those things, we wouldn't be going on future trips.

Another thing that Coach Mears made very clear to us is that we were never to react to the taunting of the crowd at away games. He was a master at firing up the opposing fans.

Perhaps he is best known for parading around the court in his Big Orange blazer before every Vanderbilt game at Memorial Gym in Nashville. There is a story to that one that needs to be told as to how it began. However, he would engender the wrath of the fans everywhere we went.

The key, in his estimation, was to fire up the team, to motivate them to believe it was an "us against the world" situation that we had to overcome. It promoted team cohesiveness. It was the reason UT had such a great road record during his tenure.

He wanted the crowd fired up, and most of all, he wanted us to totally ignore them, to show them that we were totally oblivious to them and above the fray. That frustrated them even more when we wouldn't look at or even acknowledge them in any way. That was also a part of Ray's master plan to win games.

I was there when Tennessee won the last UT-UK game at Memorial Coliseum in Lexington. That was the game where Mears showed off some excellent coaching skills and gamesmanship, and Ernie Grunfeld may have shot more than his share of free throws. It was Kentucky's last loss in their venerable old venue. I was also there when we won the first UT-UK game the very next year at famed Rupp Arena. It was the first Wildcat loss in their new place, too.

Once Rupp opened, Mears started the campaign to build an arena in Knoxville. The plans for it languished until Mears suggested that the UT administration should build something bigger than what Kentucky had. Once that decision was made, the entire state, city, and county governments got behind it as a matter of pride to best our rival.

When I was a student at UT, my favorite place to hang out between classes was at the UT basketball offices. I got to know the coaches and secretaries well. It was always a beehive of activity. The phone, by edict of Coach Mears, was always answered with the greeting, "Big Orange Basketball!" I was privileged to answer the phone a few times in relief that way.

I also got to attend what were all closed practices during Mears' coaching career. Very few people were allowed behind the curtains that stretched across the portals at Stokely Center in the afternoons. It was there that I saw the reasons why and how Tennessee basketball was so special.

The practices were intense, even moreso than many games. However, Coach Mears showed everyone that they were loved and appreciated as individuals. He never used profanity. He was always true to his moral principles.

Many of us knew that Mears had "Big Orange Forever" tattooed in Big Orange ink on his wrist after he retired. That was the way he lived his life, dedicated entirely to the school that made him famous.

I haven't said much in this piece about Ray's phenomenal success as a coach. Had his career not been cut short by health issues, he might today be in the Top 5 in wins all-time. As it stands, he is still in the Top 20 all-time among basketball coaches in terms of winning percentage.

He was a master motivator and a genius at promoting the game and the program he built. He was also a brilliant offensive tactician who complemented the brilliance of his top associate all those years, Stu Aberdeen, who was the defensive guru, who ironically passed away this same week 28 years ago.

Perhaps the reason I haven't dwelt on his success as a coach is that I got to know him as a man. I coached under him at his Camp of Champions in the summer. He was a stickler for detail and made it clear that we were expected to be on time for all our meetings, as well as see to it that our teams followed the rules explicitly.

Much of the self-discipline I have in my life now, over 30 years later, is as a result of the principles that he instilled in me. He will forever be a part of me in that regard. I viewed he and Coach Aberdeen as my mentors and later as my friends.

On one particular road trip, I was flying on a private plane with oilman and pilot Harry Bettis, a friend and big UT donor. We had played Auburn on Saturday afternoon on TV and Florida, the team we were going to play on Monday night, was playing on Saturday night in Gainesville.

Coach gave me some scouting sheets and I was given the assignment of scouting the game for them, since the team plane wasn't going to arrive until later. That confidence he placed in me to do that was something I'll never forget and for which I'll always be appreciative.

I got to know Coach Mears' sons, Mike, Steve, and Matt, when I attended school with them at UT. I also got to know his wife, Dana, much better during his illnesses later in life. I know the struggles they all had and tried to keep encouraging all of them.

Ray was only able to attend two games this past season, the Texas game, at which I got my photo made with him at his courtside seat that UT Athletics Director Mike Hamilton provided for him, and the Kentucky game, honoring his most famous recruit, Bernard King. Both were big wins for his beloved Volunteers, and I can tell you from my personal talks with him at both games, he was very satisfied and happy.

One of the things that made Coach Mears happy the most is that he was able to live to see those who didn't appreciate him enough pass from the scene, and to be recognized for his unique contributions to the entire Big Orange Nation. Anyone who ever saw him tooling around town in his Big Orange Mercedes, with "Wizard of Orange" painted on the driver's door, knew how much he loved Tennessee.

On the occasion of his 80th birthday, Knox County Commissioner Larry Smith and I had the good fortune to be his only visitors that day at the nursing home where he was recuperating from his stroke this past November. Larry, who is also the Historian of the Big Orange Tipoff Club and serves with me on the Steering Committee, brought Ray a proclamation from Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale, naming that special day "Ray Mears Day" in Knox County. I brought he and Dana a similar proclamation from Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam from the city government. His eyes twinkled and brightened when I read from those proclamations to him all of his accomplishments.

One thing I had almost forgotten about Coach Mears is that he was the inspiration for me taking the Military History 101 class that was offered by the UT ROTC program when I was a student in the 1970's. Of course, I thought it was kind of cool that the class met in Stokely Athletics Center itself, since that's where I liked to hang out anyway. But Coach Mears' lifelong passion for military history, and especially for General George Patton, whose photos he put in the UT basketball locker room just down the hall from the ROTC classrooms, was the reason that I wanted to learn more.

Ray viewed basketball as a war, and he had his troops ready for battle and on the attack for every game. He had SEC Championship rings for his players inscribed with Patton's brand from his huge Texas ranch, which was "Triple A Bar Zero." That signified that he wanted his teams to believe that they could win "Anywhere, Anyhow, Anytime, Bar Nothing." That was the way he lived his life, as a winning coach, as a winning soldier, as a winner in life, until the end.

When I became involved on the Steering Committee of the Big Orange Tipoff Club a couple of years ago, it was to give back a little of my time to a man and a program that has given so much to me. Ray Mears built UT's basketball program from nothing to something really special. We owe him a debt of gratitude for that, and I also owe him and will be forever grateful to him for what he meant to me personally as a man, far beyond what he did as a coach.

As most of you know, the Ray & Dana Mears Scholarship Fund was started in his honor at UT. I hope all Vol fans will join me in designating their donations to the University to it.

One more unfinished thing that needs to be done is to honor Coach Mears in a more permanent way. I'm campaigning for the Tipoff Club and UT to present a Ray Mears Award to a deserving basketball coach annually, one who not only was a great coach, but who was also a great man who promoted the game as he did.

However, his most lasting legacy needs to be having the UT Board of Trustees rename the building that he alone was truly responsible for having built, "Ray Mears Arena at Thompson-Boling Assembly Center." It would be just a minor alteration in its name that would mean so much to every Tennessee basketball fan everywhere. It would be an altogether fitting tribute to the man who founded a country, "Big Orange Country."

Coach Bruce Pearl is the epitomy of Coach Mears. He wears the Big Orange blazer in his honor during the Kentucky and Vanderbilt games every season. He promotes and represents the program well. Some have said that from the upper deck at the arena, Pearl looks just like Mears prowling the sidelines as he used to at Stokely Center.

Pearl respects the tradition that Mears built. Ray is already a Hall of Famer, having been inducted into both the Tennessee and Ohio Sports Halls of Fame. However, Bruce is pushing to get Ray inducted into the both the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield and the College Basketball Hall of Fame in Kansas City. He is most definitely worthy of both honors, having won a National Championship at Wittenberg in his native Ohio before coming to UT, and winning many more championships here on The Hill.

In summary, no matter what you thought of him, Ray Mears was a winner. He provided me with countless hours of marvelous, wonderful memories of great victories in Knoxville and on the road. The 103-98 win over Kentucky at home, billed as the "UT-UK Shootout," was a classic.

The excitement of going to a game during his era is almost indescribable. The UT Pride of The Southland Band would parade around the court before every game. The lights would dim and the team would burst through the giant "T" at the south end of the floor.

The crowd would be literally hanging from the rafters, as every game saw Stokely Center filled to overflowing with people and excitement for a decade and a half. It was a happening, an event. People came early to see the spectacular warm-ups that Mears initiated. It was better to be there an hour too early than a minute too late, because you didn't want to miss seeing and hearing what he might do next.

Ray Mears was intense, but he also had a heart of gold. He truly cared about other people. He made you feel special, like you were a part of his family. He made the common man feel like they were a part of the UT family, too.

No matter what is or isn't done to honor him, and there is much more that should be done by the Governor, as Chairman of the UT Board of Trustees, by the UT President, and others, as I've related above, his legacy will live on in the minds, hearts, lives, and souls of every true diehard Tennessee fan, whether they loved basketball or not, as well as his players and everyone he touched in his extraordinary life. He now belongs to the ages as a legend who will never be forgotten.

By John Mark Hancock
Copyrighted - All Rights Reserved

As 2007 gets into full swing, without much snow yet in the Great Smoky Mountains, the University of Tennessee men's basketball team is finding tough sledding on the road after some major successes in December. It appears that Head Coach Bruce Pearl's young team, while they overachieved in the early part of this still-young season, has been humbled and brought back to earth with three straight losses on the road, all of which were bitter and hard fought at the end.

The fiery Pearl, who nearly got tossed out of the game on the Plains when he was assessed a technical foul down the stretch while protesting an egregious call by a referee, lost three games in a row for the first time in his entire 15-year coaching career last night at Auburn. The Volunteers blew a 14-point lead late in the game, which when combined with the very poor officiating and the fact that star Chris Lofton never got to the free throw line while the Tigers shot multiple free tosses throughout the game, led to a 3-point loss.

A week ago UT lost to Vanderbilt by a single point in Nashville on a last-second tip-in at the buzzer which should have never happened, as the Big Orange failed to commit a foul they had to give to prevent the shot from ever being made. Sandwiched between those two league losses was another game the Vols should have won in Columbus against Ohio State, when a late bucket that was wrongly counted as a 3-pointer allowed the Buckeyes to get a 2-point comeback win.

Even with all of those heartbreaking defeats, Tennessee finds itself still perched in the Top 25 nationally in both the polls and the RPI, the ratings percentage index that is relied upon very heavily by the NCAA Selection Committee in both giving bids and seeding teams in the tournament. This is due, of course, to UT's big wins in December over Memphis, Oklahoma State, and Texas, all in Tennessee.

Here's a rundown on where all the teams on the Vols' schedule are now in the RPI among the 336 teams that are rated nationally, what UT did with each, and what they have on their upcoming schedule this month and next:

Current College RPI (As of Thursday, January 18, 2007)

4. North Carolina - Loss in New York

5. Kentucky - Jan. 28 (Away) & Feb. 13 (Home)

8. Oklahoma State - Win in Nashville

9. Memphis - Win at home

13. Ohio State - Loss on the road

17. Butler - Loss in New York

19. Alabama - Feb. 21 (Away)

24. TENNESSEE

28. Arkansas - Feb. 24 (Away)

32. Florida - Feb. 3 (Away) & Feb. 27 (Home)

45. LSU - Feb. 6 (Home)

51. Georgia - Jan. 31 (Home) & Mar. 3 (Away)

58. Texas - Win at home

68. Mississippi State - Win at home

72. Western Kentucky - Win at home

75. South Carolina - Jan. 20 (Home) & Feb. 17 (Away)

90. Vanderbilt - Loss on the road & Feb. 10 (Home)

97. Ole Miss - Jan. 24 (Away)

103. Auburn - Loss on the road

110. Fordham - Win in Nashville

139. Middle Tennessee State - Win at home

179. East Tennessee State - Win at home

189. Tennessee Tech - Win at home

234. Murray State - Win at home

242. UNC-Wilmington - Win in Nashville

270. Coppin State - Win at home

299. Louisiana-Lafayette - Win on the road

When you analyze the list above, you can easily see that there are no easy games left. All of Tennessee's remaining opponents are in the Top 100 of the RPI. Nine of their 13 remaining games are against teams in the Top 50, the measure that most observers use to rate the true worth of a basketball team on a national scale, if you believe as I do that Georgia will wind up in the Top 50 at year's end.

That makes UT's next two games absolute must wins. The Vols simply must beat the South Carolina Gamecocks at home in Knoxville on Saturday night and the Ole Miss Rebels on the road in Oxford on Wednesday night. Those two teams are ranked #75 and #97 respectively in the RPI two of the three lowest ranked teams left on the schedule. If the Big Orange loses either of those games, they are in big trouble the rest of the way. If they can regain their footing and win both of them, they will remain in good shape in terms of their ability to get into the NCAA tournament, or at least be able to preserve that possibility.

Following those two games, UT must go to Lexington to face the Kentucky Wildcats a week from Sunday, then get the Georgia Bulldogs at home in Knoxville before they have to go to Gainesville to face the defending national champion Florida Gators, who will be out for blood since Tennessee beat them twice to win the SEC Eastern Division Championship last season. Only after that road trip does the schedule turn in the Vols' favor, with five of their final 8 games at home, where they have been drawing near-capacity crowds at Thompson-Boling Arena and are in the Top 5 nationally in attendance.

All Volunteer fans realize that this team has already overachieved. The fabulous freshmen that Pearl recruited have done much better than expected. Tennessee is still a big man away from being a top team to be reckoned with. This group is growing and developing character with these losses that will hopefully pay dividends at tournament time. They simply must overcome scoring droughts on the road to develop into a consistent winner.

The fact that all three of these most recent losses have been so close bodes well for the rest of the season. The 2 SEC games that were dropped were against teams that UT should be able to redeem itself against when Vanderbilt comes to Knoxville on February 10 and if the Vols get to have a rematch against the Tigers in the SEC Tournament in Atlanta. The Ohio State loss, while bitter, was on the road against a Top 20 team in the RPI, as were Tennessee's only other losses this year, to #4 North Carolina and #17 Butler, both away from home, albeit on a neutral court in the NIT Season Tipoff Tournament.

The real tests for this year's team will be whether they can sweep both South Carolina and Georgia. Doing that will put them solidly in at least third place in the SEC East, and will also give them a good seed in the conference tournament. If they can win a couple of league tourney games, they have a good chance at a good seed in the NCAA tournament as well. That's about all this team was ever expected to do this season, and probably a lot more. If the Big Orange can remain ranked by the end of the year, this will have been an excellent foundation on which Pearl can build for his third season at the helm on The Hill.

Remember, it could be a lot worse. Coastal Carolina is now # 260 in the RPI.

The last time that Tennessee lost to Vanderbilt in consecutive years was 1925 & 1926. The Vols are headed into very dangerous territory in Nashville tomorrow.

M.B. Banks' last Tennessee team in 1925 lost to Vandy in Nashville. He became ill during that season & gave up the UT job, taking job as Knoxville Central High's coach for the balance of his career.

In 1926, as all Vol fans know, General Robert R. Neyland became the UT coach. He also lost to Vandy in his first year as head coach in a game that was also played in Nashville, but only lost to them twice after that in his illustrious career on The Hill that lasted until 1952. In fact, he only lost to Vandy once at all in Nashville, in 1948.

The 2 schools didn't play each other in 1924, but for some reason they played 3 games in a row in Nashville, 1923, 1925, & 1926. Since then, all of the Knoxville games have been in the odd years & the Nashville games in the even seasons.

What would back-to-back losses to Vanderbilt mean? Perhaps another shakeup on the Vol coaching staff? It certainly would be devastating if this year's team lost in Nashville after having just suffered losses to LSU and Arkansas, with resurgent Kentucky looming the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

It is certain that we are headed into uncharted waters with there never having been consecutive wins by the Commodores over the Vols in 80 years. I'm not sure today's players understand the significance of that.

Even Bill Battle won his last one over Vandy in Nashville after having lost to them in Knoxville in his next to last season. Johnny Majors won his first 5 in a row over VU with  less talent than UT has had in decades.

In fact, Majors only lost once to them and that was in Nashville in 1982, the last time Vandy had beaten UT until last year. In '82, UT finished 6-5-1, having a very similar year to what we had last season. The next year we bounced back for a 9-3 season, beating Maryland in the Citrus Bowl.

This UT team has a chance to make a similar comeback year and finish 10-3 with a bowl win. In order to do that, they must beat their cross-state rival tomorrow in Music City. Then they may earn a chance to return to Tennessee's capital city to face an ACC team in the Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl next month during the holidays.

In the wake of Shakeout Saturday, several members of the BCS Top 10 bit the dust. Many previously unbeaten or one-loss teams like Louisville, Texas, California, and Auburn all fell out of contention for the National Championship Game.

Now that we head down the home stretch in the 2006 college football season, only six teams realistically have a shot at playing for the national title. Here they are, in the order they should be ranked this week:

1. Ohio State
2. Michigan
3. Florida
4. Southern Cal
5. Arkansas
6. Notre Dame

Fortunately for the BCS, the participants in this year's championship game will again be decided on the field. Let's analyze how that will happen:

Arkansas probably has the hardest case to make and maybe the toughest row to hoe. Like it or not, their double-digit loss to Southern Cal in the first game of the season really put them behind the 8-ball in getting back into title contention. However, if they beat Mississippi State, LSU, and then Florida in the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta, they will deserve a shot at it all IF Southern Cal stumbles along the way. If Southern Cal runs the table, however, there is no way the Razorbacks will be picked to play for the title over the Trojans, simply due to their head-to-head results, and that is as it should be.

Notre Dame, always the darling of the media, has to beat Army and Southern Cal to claim their chance at a national title shot. If they do that, they will most likely get the slot unless Florida wins out. The overall strength of the SEC ought to trump Notre Dame's weak schedule that is laced with patsies, as it is every season.

Southern Cal has three big games remaining, California, which will surely bounce back from their loss at Arizona, Notre Dame, and UCLA, with all of them basically being home games, even though they will play UCLA in the Rose Bowl Stadium across town. If they win all three, it will be hard to keep them out of the title game. The question then becomes whether their loss at Oregon State is viewed as worse than Florida's loss at Auburn.

Florida most likely is the only team outside of the winner of the Ohio State-Michigan game that truly has its destiny in its own hands. It would be a huge feather in Head Coach Urban Meyer's cap to get his Gators into the title game. If he were to win it all, he might even make the jump to the NFL, as he would have little else to prove in Gainesville and his meteoric rise in the coaching ranks would make him very attractive to many NFL teams, perhaps the Miami Dolphins for one. They only have what will most likely be easy games left against Western Carolina and Florida State in the regular season, and then will most likely face Arkansas in the SEC title game in Atlanta.

Of course the winner of the Ohio State-Michigan game this coming Saturday is the odds-on favorite to win the national title. Will the loser get a rematch in Arizona? I just can't see that happening. The clamor from fans, coaches, media, etc., would be too great to make it an all-Big 10 rematch for the national championship. On top of that, the Rose Bowl will most definitely want the loser of this game to come to Pasadena. The politics of things will most likely keep the loser from having a shot at a rematch, even though that might be deserved.

Besides the loser of the Ohio-State-Michigan game being out of title contention, obviously the loser of the Southern Cal-Notre Dame game falls out as well. The same goes for the loser of the Florida-Arkansas SEC Championship Game in Atlanta.

Thus, your national title this year will be settled as it should be, on the field. The Ohio State-Michigan winner will play either the Southern Cal-Notre Dame winner or the Florida-Arkansas winner, assuming the winners of those games win all their other remaining games.

Since Arkansas is the weakest name with the least star power on the national scene, it will be very hard for them to get into the title game over the Southern Cal-Notre Dame winner, despite the strength of the Southeastern Conference and their dominance of the SEC Western Division so far, in addition to their big wins over South Carolina and Tennessee.

The real rub is going to come if Florida runs the table and is denied a title shot. Is the Southern Cal-Notre Dame winner more deserving than the Gators? Florida's victories at Tennessee and over LSU are their biggest wins. They would certainly deserve to be in the national title game over Notre Dame, but if Southern Cal were to whip both California and Notre Dame down the stretch, the bias for Pac-10 teams might result in the SEC being frozen out of national title contention again, just as Auburn was previously.

One of the weaknesses that still exists in the BCS formula is not taking into account strength of schedule adequately. It is somewhat measured by the computers, but strength of schedule ought still be a separate specific component of the BCS rankings again, as it once was. How do you measure the overall strength of the SEC vs. the Pac-10 vs. the Big 10? Since it is settled in everyone's mind that the SEC is the nation's strongest conference, year-in and year-out, there needs to be a strength of schedule component added back into the mix outside of the polls and computer rankings to make things fairer in the overall BCS rankings.

By the way, spare me any talk at all that a Big East team, even Rutgers if they go undefeated, deserves to be in the national title game. That conference simply isn't in the same league as the big boys. They may still deserve to participate in the BCS, but it will be rare that any of that conference's members are strong enough to compete in any other league.