It's time to crank up those Tennessee expectations once again. Last year, many thought head coach Phil Fulmer raised the equivalent of a white flag when he announced at the beginning of the season that he'd be playing two talented freshman quarterbacks Erik Ainge and Brent Schaeffer. The move worked out as well as could be hoped for. The pass defense turned out to be the worst in the SEC. It didn't really matter. Tennessee still won the SEC East and outside of a strange loss to Notre Dame (helped by an injury to Ainge), the only losses were to a national-title caliber Auburn squad. Now it's Tennessee's turn to be the SEC national championship star. It's been six years since the Vols won the national title and equally as long since they won an SEC championship. While there's no complaining about the program's success since beating Florida State in the 1999 Fiesta Bowl, Fulmer and his staff didn't quite capitalize on the national title like it probably should've. Sure, there was a great run in 2001 that would've led to a spot in the national title game before the upset loss to LSU in the SEC title game, and there was last year's SEC East crown, but it's almost as if it took all those years to get to this point. Now is the time for the program to once again be an elite of the truly elite national title superpower. Full Preview
