VolNotes:BamaWeek vol.2

[orange+white=heaven]

Good Morning Nationals!!!

Welcome visitors! There certainly were a bunch of you yesterday.
You Tide fans should know, we've got a rousing welcome planned for ya when you get to Knoxville...

on to the days stories.....

tfpOnline:Bama's Fulmer's Game

"Alabama is the game for him," senior tackle Arron Sears said. Like this season, there have been contests on Tennessee’s schedule the past decade with far more at stake in regard to title hopes and postseason implications......

Yet Fulmer’s glare is as intense as ever this week. He has repeatedly stressed the importance of this rivalry for about as long as UT players can remember.

"I believe they understand this is a very important game," Fulmer said, "for a lot of reasons."

"For those who are traditionalists, and have been around Southeastern Conference football for a long time — and Phillip is one of those — the Alabama game is always going to carry great significance," UT athletic director Mike Hamilton said.

Such a message has lived through the years. Fulmer was the driving force behind a series shift in which the Vols began to dominate in the mid-1990s. But he was also on the coaching staff for all those Tennessee teams in the late 1980s and early 1990s that couldn’t turn the Crimson Tide.

If Virginia native Marvin Mitchell, now UT’s starting linebacker, didn’t view the Alabama rivalry from Fulmer’s eyes, he does now.

"The way people around here and the fans feel about Alabama, especially with the scandal going, I felt it right then and there," Mitchell said. "As a coach, you want to get every win. But you’ve got those ones on the calendar that you’ve marked and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got to get that win.’"

tfpOnline:Ainge Comments Irk Bama's Darby

Tennessee quarterback Erik Ainge’s guaranteed victory quickly made its way to the Alabama bulletin boards Tuesday and irked running back Ken Darby. During Monday’s media session, Ainge simply stated that "we are going to win the football game."

"We heard about it. We heard about all that," Darby said. "Hey, that’s his confidence. So be it. We all think different, though.

Hey, if he feels like they’re going to win, more power to him. At the same time, we don’t feel that way. We feel like we’re going to win this game. We’ll have to go out and show them.

"We’ve got it posted on our board. Our coaches remind us about it. Hey, we’re going to have to prove people wrong. Or prove him wrong."

Alabama coach Mike Shula alluded to Ainge’s show of confidence at Tuesday’s media day.

"Their quarterback is feeling good about the way he’s been playing," Shula said, "and he should be."

(Bama Def. Coordinator)Joe Kines heaped credit on new Tennessee offensive coordinator David Cutcliffe for the improvement.

"The way they’re running their stuff and the plays are a reflection back to when he was there before," Kines said. "Plus, they’re doing a couple of things again with some formations that’s new and really giving people a lot of problems. You’re not going to go out there with a vanilla defense. They’ve got all the ingredients."

Kines said the Vols have five or six personnel groups with up to 10 formations out of each one.

"So you do the math," he said. "It’s a truckload. It’s a day’s work to get it on the board."

Health Report: Shula said receiver Keith Brown (knee) and running back Jimmy Johns (ankle) were "questionable at worst" to play against No. 7 Tennessee. Both suffered injuries in the 26-23 overtime win over Ole Miss and will be limited this week in practice.

DJ Hall, the fourth-leading receiver in the country, has an injured shoulder.

"We feel like all three of them are going to be ready," Shula said. "The trainers feel that way and the doctors feel that way. They just need a little bit of rest. On Thursday, hopefully, all three of them will be as close to full speed as possible."

Down on‘Rocky Top’
Alabama’s weight training staff is continuously playing "Rocky Top" during lifting sessions this week to keep the Tide focused on Tennessee.

"I listened to it about a thousand times. And every time it goes off, I just pray it doesn’t come back on," senior fullback Tim Castille said. "It’s over and over and over again. It’s annoying, man. That’s really what it is. It’s really annoying. The song is terrible."

Said Hall: "I was tired of it two days ago. I hate that song."

tfpOnline:Sears Determined to Play

Arron played the entire game at Georgia two weeks ago.

Likewise, nothing is going to keep him out Saturday against Alabama, he said.

"Hopefully, I can get back up to 95-100 percent so I can play," he said. "But I’m definitely going to be out there the rest of the season if I can walk."

Phillip Fulmer wanted to mention Saturday’s ugly Miami-Florida International brawl to his team, but instead of preaching, he simply asked a few senior leaders their opinion.

Turk McBride, for one, said it was embarrassing for college football.

"All of them had great answers to our football team," Fulmer said. "So I didn’t really have to say it. They said it, and that’s what I wanted."

Arian Foster "had a really fine game against Georgia," according to Fulmer, who said Foster could return kickoffs Saturday. ... Placekicker James Wilhoit was named Tuesday as a semifinalist for the Draddy Trophy, also known as the "Academic Heisman."

Tennessean:Fisher Good Fit at Tackle

"I thought I was still a linebacker," Fisher said of the position he played at Hillsboro High.
But he went from linebacker to defensive end in junior college, and now he's a tackle at Tennessee after being moved there a couple of weeks ago.
When Turk McBride suffered a hip pointer against Georgia, Fisher found himself at tackle for much of the second half.
"They threw me in the fire," said Fisher, who missed the first part of the season while recovering from offseason shoulder surgery. "They thought I was ready. Hey, I went and showed them I can play in the SEC, pretty much."

Bama week: Fisher didn't need an introduction to Alabama week. He got it when he walked out onto the practice field Monday.
"We went full pads," Fisher said. "We haven't done that since I've been here. It's been intense. Practice is going to be intense (Tuesday)."

Tennessean: Fulmer and Bama

he grew up just 10 miles from the Alabama border in Winchester and all but committed to Bear Bryant coming out of high school before changing his mind and signing with the Vols.
He's 10-3 against Alabama as Tennessee's head coach, and his overall record is 16-15.
"We've lived the series, and it was so important at the time, and I know how important it is to the Tennessee people," Fulmer said. "I think our kids understand completely what this game means to a lot of people."

Fulmer's wife, Vicky, tried to get him to quit after the Vols won the national championship in 1998.
"Her feeling was, 'It's never going to get any better than this,' " Fulmer recounted. "I don't think she really meant it. It was more, 'You've done all you can.'
"But I don't believe that. I think that we can win another national championship or two. We were close a couple of different times since then, 2001 especially.
"You just have to trust that you have the support of your administration and the people who count, and truly, there's going to be some that are never going to be pleased and satisfied, just like there's going to be some that will always support you."

"It's all a matter of how you look at it," Fulmer said. "To me, the key is never getting yourself in a position where you think, 'Well, we've arrived. We've done all we can do,' and you also never get too down. We had a tough year last year, but we had to fight back.
"Two years ago, that was a great coaching job by us and the staff to get that team to the SEC Championship Game. We didn't get dumb in one year. But as the head coach or CEO or whatever you want to call it, you make the changes you think you need to make to get to where we are now.
"We're back to playing good, tough football."

Go Vols!!!

 

[tidwell]

"Their quarterback is feeling good about the way he’s been playing," Shula said, "and he should be."

:rock2:

Good stuff as usual, owh.

 

[orange+white=heaven]

I was a little surprised to read that Bama took Ainge's quote from yesterday as a bulletin board guarantee.

The actual quote was fairly innocuos....
(for you bammers, innocuous means....not likely to irritate or offend; inoffensive)

"There's a difference between knowing that, 'Yeah, you can win' and knowing that when Alabama comes in, that we're going to win the football game," Ainge said.
"That's how we feel now. We are going to win the football game.
"That's the attitude we have, and we didn't have that attitude last year. We were kind of, 'Man, I hope we play good. I hope this. I hope that.'

 

[tidwell]

This is Alabama we're talking about. Erik and all of us shouldn't have expected them fully understand the context of the quote.

 

[russvol]

hopefully it will be foster and coker returning kickoffs.

 

[volinbham]

I was a little surprised to read that Bama took Ainge's quote from yesterday as a bulletin board guarantee.

The actual quote was fairly innocuos....
(for you bammers, innocuous means....not likely to irritate or offend; inoffensive)

Thanks for clarifying - I was a little concerned that Ainge was guaranteeing a victory but seeing it in context, it's pretty clear what he was saying. Now I'm going to overuse an icon :hi:

 

[orange+white=heaven]

... Now I'm going to overuse an icon :hi:

taking a shot. Thats cool....

 

[volinbham]

taking a shot. Thats cool....

I wouldn't say shot - more like a mild poke :w00t:

Thanks for the kind words in the other post BTW.