Tennessee Football
- The Jesse Scroggins Watch heads to Los Angeles, where it sounds like Pete Carroll is upping the ante on that whole "everything's a competition" idea: six quarterbacks, 48 hours, one scholarship offer. Even if Scroggins wins the day at SC, don't expect an automatic commitment, and don't expect anything soon: despite telling KNS that he would announce his decision between Florida, Tennessee and USC quickly, he told ESPN on Tuesday that he would announce at the Elite 11 camp...in late July. We need you, Jesse. Now more than ever. Don't toy with our emotions for another month. Check out ESPN.com's interview with Scroggins for his extended thoughts on all three schools.
- This is a couple of days old, but Clay Travis is saying with "blog certainty" that Tennessee will open the season against Western Kentucky at 12:30 PM in the old JP/LF/Raycom slot (...which is now ESPN regional, I think), and then host UCLA at 4:00 PM the following week, presumably on ESPN(2). CBS has Tennessee/Florida as their first national telecast the next week at 3:30...which means sunscreen is a must in the month of September.
- TWITTERTRACKER: Mike Hamilton's page tells us that the new JumboTron will not have the old VOLS letters at the top, to be replaced with a Power T. More on the sacrifice of tradition momentarily...
Tennessee Basketball
- The must-read of the day comes from...that's right, Bruce Pearl. He's all over the place with the NBA Draft tomorrow night, and aside from his radio and television appearances as an analyst for NBATV, he's writing daily columns at NBA.com. His first piece, on why college players are better suited for the NBA, is well-written, insightful, and full of love for the Vols and the SEC. Ditto for Pearl's "Super Seven" piece, which channels Dickie V (in a good way), and his thoughts on the best sleepers in the draft. You cannot buy this kind of exposure...even if you're Memphis.
College Football
- Oregon (bonus points if you didn't do the standard double-take because you thought it said "Orgeron") has new unis. Again. Holly has a thorough breakdown... (on soapbox) you know, one day soon when all college uniforms are overly crowded with corporate logos and other assorted fun, we'll look back on this moment. Because if Oregon can put wings on their shoulders, I guarantee you that every major program in the country has someone in their athletic department who's looking at those pictures and thinking up new ways to blaspheme their program's unis. When teams like North Carolina will prostitute themselves to Nike and allow for drastic changes in the basic color scheme, what's the college football world coming to? (off soapbox)
- Being in the mix for the head coaching job at Tennessee has its perks: Cincinnati's Brian Kelly just signed a one year extension, upping his salary to a hefty $1.5 million per year.
- RollBamaRoll takes a look at Nick Saban's book, How Good Do You Want To Be? (subtitle: That Depends on The Going Rate of Textbooks). The best part about this book is that Saban wrote it in 2004, fresh off his National Championship at LSU. It is apparently and obviously full of LSU stories. But they've repackaged it with a shiny new Bammer cover and the same Saban grin, which I'm sure will catch some Tide faithful off guard if/when they read it. More fun: an Amazon search for "Lane Kiffin" returns this book.
