Tennessee

• Talking Points was scrapped yesterday due to CRUNK. In honor of Crunkday, I am blogging shirtless this morning. By the way, for all of you bloggers of other teams telling us we should be embarrassed, I direct you to Ooltewah defensive end Jacques Smith, who has this to say:

  I was at Alabama’s junior camp a couple of weeks ago, and honestly, it was boring compared to Tennessee. We toured the campus at Alabama and the stadium and met with Coach Saban. But there’s no comparison in how excited you get after talking with their staff and the staff at Tennessee. We saw the academic side and the business side of what Tennessee offers, but then we got to see how much fun it will be to play there, too. What Tennessee did blew everybody away.

  (emphasis mine, but you know he meant it that way.) Thank you, Mr. Smith. Your witness.
  
• But what a weekend for Tennessee sports. Kentucky goes down to LSU. South Carolina falls prey to Vandy's bizarro court. Tennessee beats Florida, breaking their home-win streak in the process, and thwarting Dan Werner's feeble attempt to "punk" Tyler Smith. Not smart, Mr. Werner, and we're adding that to the record of wrongs. Console yourself with Nick Calathes' wishful thinking. And the Lady Vols grew up and beat Vanderbilt.
• Time for you to put on for Tennessee. Bobby Maze understands that the team has struggled a bit at home this year, but urges fans to attend the last home game Sunday. The Vols are not a lock for the NCAA Tournament, so it's all still important, and Pearl is keeping the team's backs against the wall because they apparently play better that way. Things are looking up, though, with the team playing pretty well lately and Scotty Hopson finding his groove (and being awarded SEC Freshman of the Week).
• FOOTBAW. VolQuest has a great feature piece on dacoacho. Inside Tennessee has a great line about Lane Kiffin "wading into Gator infested waters to fish." And remember Kiffin's Post-NSD Chest-Thumping and Erroneous Allegations Tour? Of course you do. Well, the Florida fan base is swallowing the bait whole, printing up t-shirts and everything:
  
  

SEC

• Steve Spurrier is still making predictions.
• A Sea of Blue is managing expectations and using a fantastic title to do it.
• Track 'Em Tigers scours the Stimulus Package and highlights college football-flavored pork, including this fine bit for orange folks:

  BAILOUT: For a coaching staff for the Tennessee Volunteers. They can finally hire all the specialty coaches and recruiting dynamos they desire. Unfortunately, like CEO pay at bailed-out Fortune 500 companies, all assistant-coach salaries will be capped at $500,000, too. However, reward money from whistle-blowing on rival institutions will be considered exempt compensation.

Other

• In case you missed it here earlier, Gate 21 has a fantastic analysis of the Brian Butler thing, and in the long historic tradition of legal-types, even busts out the hypotheticals.