Rocky Top Talk, a Tennessee Volunteers community

Joel, you had me at Kristin Davis. Adding bacon and "Kyle hates Auburn" was just piling on, really.

1. Tennessee will be this year’s Michigan. You all recall what happened to the Wolverines in their first year under Rich Rodriguez. Expect the same thing to happen to the Volunteers under Lane Kiffin, only more so, for two reasons. First of all, there is absolutely no evidence at this point to suggest that Coach Kiffin fils is on a par with Coach Rodriguez . . . or even that he’s anything other than Mike Shula dressed in dreamsickle orange. Secondly, when you tick off that many of your colleagues in your first few weeks on the job, you’re going to get your comeuppance more than once, and it will be ugly. By mid-October, the Big Orange message boards will be ablaze with the rhetorical question, "For this we fired a national championship-winning U.T. alum?"

That's why we here at Dawgsports are charging Tim Tebow with crimes against college football*. It's a strong charge, I know, but we've done the investigation and we think it will stick.

Mississippi State at Tennessee: Does anybody else remember what life was like a little over a year ago, back when Phillip Fulmer had more job security than Sylvester Croom and both head coaches were glad David Cutcliffe no longer had an Oxford mailing address? My, how times have changed. Now, the guillotining of Tony Franklin and Tommy Bowden at other orange-drenched programs has the Volunteer Navy smelling blood in the water as the faithful head down the Tennessee River to Knoxville, where the wagons are being circled---I mean that metaphorically, but they probably could do it literally if pressed---and the buzzards soon will follow suit. I expect that a good 50 per cent of what comes though Coach Fulmer’s headset this weekend will be Dave Clawson saying, "Boy, firing their offensive coordinator at midseason sure didn’t work out well for Auburn, did it? Say, did you know I went 29-29 as the head coach at Fordham? Pretty cool, huh? I don’t think I ever told you this, but I actually played defensive back in college, but here I am coaching offense! Wild, huh? I went to Williams College, you know. Yeah, the Ephs play Division III football, but don’t let that New England Small College Athletic Conference affiliation fool you; Williams participates in Division I skiing and squash, mister! Yeah, I am so fired, aren’t I?" However, even in Tennessee’s present state of disarray, there’s just too much talent on hand in Knoxville for me to believe that the Volunteers will lose to the lesser breed of Bulldog.