This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 11

And now, a word from our sponsor:

When you go to a particular school or grow up around college football, you are more than just a fan. It’s who you are. We thought we could leverage this pride in your roots and show that "where you come from" is more than just a statement about geography. By positioning NCAA Football 11 as a game that understands this pride and is authentic to these traditions, the takeaway should be that anything that is in college football is in NCAA Football 11.

And this doesn’t just include game play (though that’s a huge part of it). It’s rivals and mascots; it’s legends and stories. It’s those things that are at the very fabric of the game itself. Of course the game is great this year as well. With authentic entrances, mascots and specific offenses for each team, the term "where I come from" takes on a much larger meaning. While playing NCAA Football 11 is ultimately a great sports sim, it should also give you a sense of the pride and emotion one has for being a fan of a team they will never not be a part of.

Feel free to use this as an open thread for thoughts on the game, if you have it.  Thanks to EA Sports for partnering with us all week.

This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 11

What would've been a sobering projection for the 2010 season took an even more depressing turn on Friday.  Even making a projection now is incomplete guesswork, moreso than usual, because as of this morning we still don't know how long Greg King and Marlon Walls will be suspended, nor do we know if any further suspensions are coming after the Bar Knoxville incident.

But now less than eight weeks away from the real thing and four days removed from our latest black eye, where are we?  What do we expect to see from the Vols this fall?

"Expect" is the key word.  This isn't what we hope for (and 54 days away I feel confident I can still be rational about this team; there's no guarantee of that once the calendar hits August), and this isn't even how we would define success - plain and simple, how do you think we'll finish this year?

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This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 11

We conclude our weeklong look back with our favorite moments as Tennessee fans; on Monday we'll take a look forward, just in time for the dual release of the video game and our Rocky Top Tennessee 2010 annual on Tuesday.

Again, our emphasis is on favorite, not best:  what are the moments for you that stand out as a Tennessee fan?  There are countless individual plays, great games, and moments of fandom that serve as the highest points in our journey as Tennessee fans.  We've spent the last two summers looking back at our greatest wins and our most heartbreaking losses, and there are countless memories in all of those games...

So which are your favorite? 

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This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 11.

Several times a year, fans of non-conference opponents or SEC brethren who've never been to Knoxville will come to our site looking for the best places to go, eat, and experience Tennessee Football on a fall Saturday in Knoxville.  Lots of us have offered lots of good ideas on those posts in the pasts, and as we continue our promotion with EA Sports in celebrating all that is good in the world of college football, today's post will hopefully become a central location for future questions on what to see on gameday.

What are your favorite tailgating traditions?

There's so much to see in Knoxville, from the Vol Navy to the Vol Walk.  There's the Pride of the Southland's march into Neyland, made even more spectacular by the mass of orange humanity that appears on Phillip Fulmer Way before and after the band comes through.  From the Old City to the The Strip, a conversation about the best places to go on fall weekends includes some well-known establishments and some lesser-known favorites.

So where do you tailgate?  Where do you eat?  What's the best way to get the Tennessee Football pregame experience? 

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This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 11

This fall will be Tennessee's 120th year of football, trailing only Kentucky (1881), Ole Miss (1890), and Vanderbilt (1890) as the oldest football program in the SEC.  In those twelve decades the Vols have won sixteen SEC Championships (since play began in 1933), twenty-five bowl games (from 1931), had thirty-eight first-team All-Americans, and claimed six National Championships, including two consensus titles in 1951 and 1998.

Now, for most of us, my assumption is that when the question of favorite Tennessee team is raised, our answer is immediately 1998.  And that's obviously for good reason - it wasn't just the National Championship, it was doing it without Peyton Manning, beating Florida for the first time in six years behind Al Wilson, Clint Stoerner's stumble and fumble, and many other great memories of that season. 

So if you want to talk about the '98 Vols as your favorite team, by all means go ahead.  But we're also just going to acknowledge that they have reserved their own special place in Tennessee Football history, that their championship separates them from the rest...and then open up the floor for some of our other favorite teams as well.

Every season tells a story, and every team leaves its mark on Tennessee, and on us.  What's your favorite Tennessee Football team?

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This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 11, in stores July 13.

Why are you here?

We kickoff our weeklong celebration of what makes college football great by sharing our most basic story:  how did you become a Tennessee fan?

Age and time may separate us:  some fall in love with Tennessee later in life, thanks to a move or a grad school decision.  Others may not know much about the Vols when they walk on campus as freshmen, but leave the university with a passion that lasts the rest of our lives, having experienced the orange and white firsthand.  And some of us are lifers, East Tennessee born and bred, wearing orange from the time our parents put us in it as infants, to this very day. 

But whatever your story, our love for Tennessee works together for the common good.

And yeah, we'd love to hear how you came to RockyTopTalk as well, both from our greatest community contributors down to the longtime listeners/first time callers.  All of the posts that EA is sponsoring all throughout our college network this week celebrate that which makes college football great, and will do so by our community sharing our greatest stories, favorite traditions, teams, and players...and our proudest moments.

So what's your story?  How did you become a Tennessee Vol, and where has that journey taken you? 

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