After the embarrassing losing season in 2005, including a home loss to Vanderbilt for first time in 30 years and only the third time since 1938, the Tennessee Volunteers were at home without a bowl game to prepare for over the holidays. This season, expectations are tempered and fans are taking a wait and see attitude after being disappointed time and time again since UT's last championship of any kind is now a distant memory of eight years ago. 

To make matters worse, the media appears to agree that this year's edition of Big Orange football is likely to only be able to make it to third in the SEC East and perhaps slip behind South Carolina to fourth, with Florida and Georgia leading the division. In addition, Tennessee has to face three of the best teams in the SEC West, LSU, Alabama, and Arkansas, the latter on the road.

Thank goodness that Auburn, the consensus choice to win the SEC Championship overall, isn't on the schedule. The way the Vols were manhandled the last couple of times they tussled with Tommy Tuberville's Tigers, it may be a fortunate thing if UT doesn't make to Atlanta this year, as that one might be as ugly as the last two meetings for Vol fans.

What are the expectations of Vol fans for 2006? For one, they expect that UT will have its toughest home opener in history when the California Golden Bears come calling at 5:30 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday, September 2, in front of a capacity crowd of 108,000 at Neyland Stadium and a national television audience on ESPN. Cal, experiencing a resurgence under Head Coach Jeff Tedford, in his 6th season at Berkeley, is a consensus pick to finish in the Top 10 nationally.

Then, just two weeks after that, the Florida Gators come calling in Knoxville, at 8 p.m. Eastern time on September 16, with CBS providing the national TV stage. The Gators beat the Vols last year in Gainesville in a game that UT had every opportunity to win, giving Urban Meyer perhaps his biggest win of his maiden season. UF has won 2 of the last 3 in the series on the Vols' home turf, and they will be favored to win again this time out.

Thus, Tennessee could easily find itself with a 1-2 record in short order before September is barely half over. That would put them at a distinct disadvantage to challenge for anything meaningful for the 8th year in a row and put the heat on for major improvements.

Everyone knows by now that Head Coach Phillip Fulmer has revamped his staff on the offensive side of the ball, bringing back offensive guru David Cutcliffe to Knoxville. Time will tell if the moves, which included hiring other inexperienced but eager young coaches, are too little too late to right the flagship of the Vol Navy.

Fulmer still is the winningest active major college football coach in America. He is the dean of SEC coaches. Tennessee has been a great road team under his leadership. They are the winningest team in the league over both the last 10 years and the last 20 seasons. He always recruits well and has produced more NFL draft picks than any other conference school during his tenure.

However, despite all of that, Fulmer, now in his 15th year at the helm, shows only two SEC championships on his record, the same number that Doug Dickey had in 6 years, and one less than Johnny Majors attained in his 16 seasons in charge. Both Dickey and Majors faced major rebuilding jobs when they took over at UT, while Fulmer took over a program already laden with talent and poised to win big. 

With the big games like Cal, Florida, and Alabama being on the road in 2007, fans are getting restless. Donors who are being asked to fund $100 million in Neyland Stadium improvements are wondering when the first-class facilities they're building for their team are going to pay off with another league championship. If not this year, when? 

Certainly there is a major opportunity for improvement over last season. But 2005 was such an aberration that it will be very difficult to please fans who are used to going to major bowl games if UT doesn't qualify for a big one for the seventh year in a row. Not since 1999 has UT played in a BCS bowl. Will making it to the Capital One Bowl in Orlando or the Cotton Bowl in Dallas be enough to satisfy hungry Big Orange boosters?

Even if Tennessee survives its early season tests with flying colors, there is a midseason gauntlet to run, starting with the Georgia game in Athens on October 7. The Bulldogs have won 5 of the last 6 against UT, after the Vols had beaten them 9 times in a row. Then UT plays host to Alabama, its old archrival that has become a nemesis again, has to go to Columbia to face Steve Spurrier's South Carolina Gamecocks, who beat them last year in Knoxville, returns home to face an LSU Tiger team bent on revenge from last season, and finally must make the long trek to face always-dangerous Arkansas in Fayetteville.  This may be the roughest stretch that Tennessee has had to face in years.

What's the assessment at this juncture, over a month in advance of the 2006 season? Tennessee could easily surge back to the top of the SEC East or be another also-ran. Most are predicting an 8-4 record for the Vols. The regular season record could be as bad as 6-6, which would certainly result in even more major changes on The Hill, or as good as 10-2, which would silence most of the critics and get things back on track for a title run next season.

One thing is certain: This is a pivotal year for Tennessee football. The program is at a crossroads. It all begins with perhaps the most pivotal game of this pivotal year in the season opener. More could be riding on that one than any other UT game in the past generation.