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The 2011 edition of the Maple Street Press Tennessee Volunteer preseason annual is now available for pre-order over the internet and will hit the newstands on July 19th. They've re-branded it a bit, now calling it "Volunteers Kickoff" rather than "Rocky Top Tennessee," but it's the same excellent concept with another fantastic hybrid group of mainstream and new media contributors that it's always been.
I should have taken notes, so these numbers may not be exact, but when I went to the magazine rack at the local grocery store last week, I pulled the competition off the stands to see how much actual Tennessee coverage was in those things. Listen, we all love Phil Steele, but he covers everything, and in doing so, he says very little about Tennessee. Two pages, maybe, although it's in 2 point font (only a slight exaggeration), so he's efficient with space. Most of the others have maybe 4-7 pages of Vol stuff. One other publication is actually devoted exclusively to the Vols, but although it, like Volunteers Kickoff, has 128 pages, about 35 pages of it is advertising.
So no Tennessee Volunteer preseason publication has more information than Volunteers Kickoff. It's 128 pages of ad-free UT football. We did add an article on the SEC and a humor piece on college football realignment, but other than that, it's All Vol, all the way through.
The table of contents is below the jump. We hope to fire up the RTT Podcast here shortly, and the plan is to have these guys on to discuss their articles all the way leading up to kickoff, so you'll want to be up to speed by ordering your copy today.
| Table of Contents |
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Baby Steps: Breaking Down the 2011 Roster Y'all know Brad from Third Saturday in Blogtober. He takes a comprehensive in-depth look at the roster to open the annual and contributes a few other pieces below. |
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Year Zero: The Ups and Downs of 2010 Yes, Will again takes on several pieces this year, beginning with a recap of the 2010 season. It's not as painful as you might think Okay, maybe it is. Or not. |
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Signposts: Five Plays From 2010 That Indicate Tennessee May Be On The Road To Recovery This article breaks down five plays from the 2010 season that can be viewed as building blocks for the Vols. |
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Leading Man: What Direction Will The Vols Offense Take With Tyler Bray at the Helm? Bray, Bray, Bray. |
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Mama's Boy And Proud Of It: After A Slow Start, Tauren Poole Has Found His Footing Host of the wildly popular Sports 180 radio show on The Sports Animal, Josh contributes a couple of pieces this year, including this great feature on Poole and a thorough review of this year's recruiting class. |
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Rediscovering "Wide Receiver U": A Look at Justin Hunter, Da'Rick Rogers, and Matt Milton by Brad Shepard |
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The Class of 2011: Introducing The Newest Additions To The Roster by Josh Ward |
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Chance For The Better: Get To Know USC Transfer Malik Jackson by Brad Shepard |
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Scouting The Competition: Inside The 2011 Schedule Josh's co-host on Sports 180, Will does the scouting legwork for us in this year's annual, bringing us all up to speed on Tennessee's 2011 opponents. |
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Opening The Playbook: The Xs and Os Behind Tennessee's Offensive Attack RTT's 'snail gets a little nuts with diagrams and stuff in breaking down Jim Chaney's offense. |
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Secret Weapon: Ron McKeefery is Invaluable To The Tennessee Staff A guy named Kneeland is destined to write for a UT preseason publication, right? Andrew features the Vols' new strength and conditioning coach. |
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2011 Coaching Staff by Andrew Kneeland |
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Second Year Surges: Can Tennessee Make a Quick Turnaround In Derek Dooley's Second Year? Year2 of SB Nation SEC blog Team Speed Kills takes on the question of second-year expectations for Dooley. |
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Sophomore Seasons: Can Tyler Bray Avoid The Dreaded Sophomore Slump? Every Vol's favorite beat writer and Twitterer, Rucker takes a look at the year two question as it relates to UT quarterbacks and Tyler Bray. |
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Recruiting Matters: Breaking Down The Link Between Top-End Recruiting and Winning National Titles Although Auburn's 2010 national championship was a bit of an outlier, recruiting rankings are still a decent predictor of on-field success. What does Tennessee's recruiting say about its future? |
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Size Matters: Bulking Up The Front Seven Is Priority Number One For The Vols Defense Bud Elliott of SB Nation FSU blog Tomahawk Nation examines the importance of size along the defensive front seven. |
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Conference Realignment Primer: Which Conferences Win and Lose as a Result of Realignment? Gillett, of SB Nation Atlanta and EDSBS, brings some much-needed comedy relief to the table in this examination of the recent realignment of college football. |
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High Fives for 2011: Program Goals, Key Players, and Predictions Just like it sounds, although there's humor hidden in the predictions. |
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The Miracle at South Bend: 20 Years Later, An Iconic Win Over Notre Dame Lives On The Vol Historian provides his take on the anniversary of one of the greatest moments in the history of the program. |
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Edge of the Promised Land: How 2001's Heartbreaking Finish Marked a Sea of Change For Tennessee Will's piece on the ten-year anniversary of the bittersweet ending to the 2001 season. That's the first I've seen that subtitle, and I'm not sure I would have gone with it, as the article is much more balanced than that. It also provides a fantastic look at the great win over the Gators. |
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SEC Rules: What's The Story Behind the SEC's Consistent BCS Success? Who better than the lead blogger for Team Speed Kills to talk about the SEC's dominance of the BCS? |
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Love Him Or Hate Him: Arian Foster Has Cultivated An Interesting Legacy on the Gridiron Will takes a look at Foster's strange trip through Rocky Top to NFL stardom. |