GoVolsXtra.com has a nice trip down memory lane, interviewing former Vol Billy Ratliff about former Arkansas quarterback Clint Stoerner’s fumble, the play that saved the 1998 national championship season.

Folks, it wasn’t a fluke. Ratliff, after receiving a short pep talk from injured lineback Al Wilson, beat the offensive lineman who’d been beating him all night when it mattered most, knocking him backwards into Stoerner, who tripped and fumbled the ball. Ratliff recovered, and the Vol offense drove the field to take the lead and win the game.

VolQuest.com previews the Florida Gators and says that offensive linemen Jacques McClendon, Darius Myers, and Ramone Johnson are the freshmen with the best chance of making an impact this year. Johnson, by the way, has been cleared to attend the second summer session of class. Brent Vinson, on the other hand, is headed toward Hargrave Military Academy, having not made the grade on his standardized test.

Looking toward the season, UT faced some marquee quarterbacks last year, , but QB stability is, let’s say, questionable throughout the SEC this year. (HT: Georgia Sports Blog.) No, this year, says Inside Tennessee, UT’s challenge is facing stellar running backs: California’s Marshawn Lynch, Alabama’s Kenneth Darby, Arkansas’ Darren McFadden, Kentucky’s Rafael Little, and Georgia’s Thomas Brown, all of which College Football News has ranked in their national top 20. Not especially good news if your strength is the secondary and there are question marks with the front seven.

The Tennessee Volunteers hosted the Arkansas Razorbacks in sold-out Thompson-Boling Arena this afternoon. Chris Lofton had a subpar game. So did Dane Bradshaw.

It almost didn’t matter. Behind C.J. Watson, who was wearing a No. 53 Bernard King jersey and was really the only Vol who had a good game, Tennessee was neck and neck with the Hogs until a technical was assessed against Arkansas’ No. 5 for yelling “There you go, Bradshaw,” after dunking on him. Tennessee then went on a 16-4 run and gradually pulled away to a double-digit lead and maintained it through most of the second half.

But then the Hogs closed to within 4 with about 5:00 minutes left and took the lead on a three-pointer with about 4:00 minutes left. From that point on, Tennessee could not hit a shot (except for one trey by Lofton) and could not stop Arkansas’ big men from scoring under the basket.

Oh, well. Not much at stake for Tennessee, and the Hogs were motivated by bubble-dwelling.

By the way, when did Montel Williams start coaching Arkansas?

College Football News has the Tennessee Volunteers ranked No. 9 in its Pre-preseason poll. Here’s how the Vols’ 2006 opponents stack up in the same poll:

• California — No. 12
• Air Force — No. 89
• Florida — No. 2
• Marshall — No. 88
• Memphis — No. 73
• Georgia — No. 21
• Alabama — No. 20
• South Carolina — No. 35
• LSU — No. 4
• Arkansas — No. 34
• Vanderbilt — No. 72
• Kentucky — No. 78

Mike Strange takes a look at the upside of a losing season:

The four-game losing streak is the first in the program since the infamous 0-6 start in 1988.

“It was kind of like a tale of two seasons,” said Eric Still.

“Everyone calls the ‘88 team the 0-and-6 team. People forget we won those last five games.”

The guys on that team haven’t forgotten that they picked themselves up off the mat and ran the table. Hobby was a defensive tackle. Still was an offensive guard.

And it mattered that they did because of what happened next.

“We all felt like we had our backs to the wall big-time from ‘88 to ‘89,” Still said. “And we came out swinging.”

In 1989, the Vols came out swinging and connected.

They were, in fact, one bad defensive day — a 47-30 loss to Alabama — away from being in the national championship race. They finished 11-1, shared the SEC title and won a thrilling Cotton Bowl battle over Arkansas.

Pete Fiutak of College Football News says the Tennessee Volunteers’ schedule is as brutal as it gets:

Well, there is some excuse for Tennessee. I don’t care what any formula says, playing at Florida, at LSU, Georgia, at Alabama, and at Notre Dame is as brutal as it gets. Based on winning percentage, the teams with the toughest schedules played so far are: 1) Arkansas, 2) Oklahoma, 3) Tennessee, and tied for fourth are South Florida and Michigan. Going into this weekend, if you want to go by the teams with the toughest schedules yet to be played, they are 1) Cal, 2) Stanford, 3) Iowa, 4) USC, 5) Kansas.

The Tennessee Volunteers get a great chance to redeem themselves and improve their national standing when they travel to Tuscaloosa to take on archrival Alabama. This game is too close to call: the Vol defense should make it difficult for the Crimson Tide offense to be productive, and the Bama defense won’t make it easy for the Vol offense to get on track. Heck, even collegefootballnews.com can’t make up its mind.

Some other games of interest to Volunteer fans this weekend:

• Auburn at LSU. This one’s sorta hard to figure. LSU is ranked higher than Auburn, so you’d think you’d want Auburn to win, but an LSU victory makes the Vols’ earlier victory over LSU look better, and an LSU loss would probably only have the effect of substituting Auburn for LSU in the top ten anyway. It’s really a toss up on whom to root for, but I’m going with LSU.
• Arkansas at Georgia. This one, however, is a no-brainer. Wooooo Pigs Soooie!
• Texas Tech at Texas. Tech burst into the top ten last week, and the Longhorns may be due for a letdown. Really, they both need to lose, but this might be the other UT’s only real challenge for the rest of the year.
• Georgia Tech at Miami. Georgia Tech beat Auburn earlier this year. Can they pull off another upset?
• Penn State at Illinois. Will Penn State have a hangover after a tought loss last week at Michigan? Will it matter?
• Oregon State at UCLA. Can the Beavers knock off a top ten team two weeks in a row?

CFN has the TV listings.

Monday night’s come-from-behind victory against the LSU Tigers has spawned a lot of discussion on Knoxville talk radio about the best Tennessee Volunteer football games in the Phillip Fulmer area. Here are my top 5:

1. Tennessee v. Florida State, 1998 National Championship. Capping off a perfect season, the Volunteers frustrated Peter Warrick into a sideline tantrum and beat the Seminoles under an orange moon in Tempe, Arizona.
2. Tennessee v. Florida, 1998. The Vols and Coach Fulmer ended a losing streak against nemesis Steve Spurrier when the Gators missed a field goal in overtime. All Vol fans will remember the call by John Ward, the Voice of the Vols: “No . . . sir . . . eee, pandemonium reigns,” as the crowd rushed the field and ripped down the goal post. The win was the catalyst for the perfect season and the national championship.
3. Tennessee at Florida, 2001. A 17-point underdog, Tennessee’s Travis Stephens — the guy who was too small to carry the load for the Vols for an entire season — pounded the Gators on the ground, running around, over, and through the Florida defense for over 200 yards. Essentially a playoff game with everything on the line, the win catapulted the Vols into the SEC Championship game. If they had won in Atlanta the next week, they would have gone on to the Rose Bowl and a national championship game. Losing instead to LSU took a little luster off the big Florida win.
4. Tennessee v. Arkansas, 1998. With a perfect season coming to a close in the final minutes against the Hogs, Arkansas just needed to run out the clock. But the defensive line blew an offensive lineman up immediately after the snap, pushing him backwards and causing the quarterback to trip as he was pulling out from under center. The quarterback put his ball-hand on the ground to steady himself — and fumbled, untouched. Tennessee’s Billy Ratliff recovered, and the Vols, behind running back Travis Henry, marched some 40 yards into the end zone to keep their perfect season and national championship hopes alive.
5. Tennessee at LSU, 2005. Rick Clausen — The Rudy of the New Millennium, Nobody’s All-American — told by former LSU coach Nick Saban that he was not good enough to play in the SEC and told by UT coach Phillip Fulmer that he was not good enough to start for the Vols, came off the bench after starting quarterback Erik Ainge’s train wreck of a half to lead one of the greatest comebacks in Tennessee football history. Down 21-0 at halftime and 24-7 going into the 4th quarter, Clausen and the Vols beat all odds, finally finding an offensive rhythm after two and a half games and kicking a team while it was down in full view of its rabid fans and a sympathetic nation.

Any I’ve missed? Comments?

Go Vols!