Any other Tennessee fans watch big games in other conferences for the first time this season? If so, you might have noticed something.

Offense.

Big plays.

Both Texas and USC dominated their opponents with exceptional, exciting offense.

The LSU-Georgia game was . . . different.

More defense.

Some, but not a lot, of big plays on offense.

It really shows the difference in parity in the SEC and in the Big 12 and Pac 10. John Pennington has noticed, too, and has some facts and figures to back it up.

Just comparing SEC records from 1994-99 with the records from 2000-05, you can see a real shift in power among the league’s top seven programs.

From ’94-99, Florida (43-5) and Tennessee (40-8) were far ahead of Alabama (32-16), Georgia (26-22), Auburn (24-24), LSU (22-26) and woeful South Carolina (13-35). Two teams had more than 40 wins in that six-year span. Most of the other “good” programs were around .500 or worse. The difference between the best of those teams and the worst was an enormous 30 wins.

But look at the stretch from 2000-05 Auburn (36-12), LSU (35-13), Georgia (35-13), Florida (34-14) and Tennessee (33-15) are all separated by just three wins over a six-year span. And while Alabama (like Florida and UT) has fallen back to the pack (24-24), South Carolina has shown a huge improvement (24-24).

It’s getting much more difficult to win in the SEC.

The Tennessee Volunteers must beat the Kentucky Wildcats today to avoid last place in the SEC East:

Everyone knows how dark and eerie it can be down there.

When you’re 8 years old, a trip to the depths of grandma’s cellar was about as welcome as ringworm.

When you’re 22, and a senior football player at the University of Tennessee, a trip to the SEC East cellar is just as frightening. It means “Rocky Top” has truly found “Rock Bottom.”

That’s what lies at stake today.

Tennessee (4-6, 2-5 SEC) travels to Kentucky (3-7, 2-5) at 12:30 p.m. (TV: WVLT) with the loser a guaranteed cellar-dweller in the East Division.

The Vols have lost to the Gators. Lost to the Bulldogs. Lost to South Carolina. Lost to Vanderbilt.

Kentucky?

Lots of good SEC matchups this weekend:

• LSU at Alabama. 3:30, on CBS. Alabama’s looking for an SEC title and some national championship consideration, and LSU’s wanting to show the world that its early loss to the Tennessee Volunteers was an aberration. Heck, we can tell them that.
• Florida at South Carolina. 12:30, ESPN Gameplan. College Football News’ Matthew Zemek has some context:
  

  To capture the extraordinary nature of this game on Saturday in Columbia, one must merely mention two realities that defy the laws of gravity, human nature, and the cosmic balance of existence:

  1) Florida fans will be rooting like hell against Steven Orr Spurrier.

  2) Georgia fans will be rooting like hell for Steven Orr Spurrier.

  Holy body snatchers, Batman! This has the sick and twisted plotline of a sci-fi cult classic.

• Auburn at Georgia. 7:45, ESPN. An SEC pecking order game.

And no, Tennessee’s game against Memphis is not a “lock-yourself-in-a-room-to-watch” game. It’s a 2:00, ESPN Gameplan game.

Tennessee Volunteer quarterback Rick Clausen had strong words for the media concerning the resignation of Offensive Coordinator Randy Sanders:

It’s unbelievable. That’s the easiest way to describe it.

* * * *

It’s a bunch of crap that fans blame coaches and media blames coaches for the fact players can’t go out and make plays.

* * * *

It’s just disheartening everyone claims to be in the Tennessee family and the Vol nation, but at the first sign of adversity everybody decides to blame Coach Sanders. I’m pissed at the whole situation. I’m pissed at everybody. I’m pissed at myself. I feel like I let him down.

* * * *

His job, his wife’s and daughters’ livelihoods, were basically in my hands. If I go out and don’t throw an interception, we probably beat South Carolina.

* * * *

If I don’t throw an interception against Georgia, we probably beat Georgia. If we don’t fumble twice inside the 10-yard line against Alabama, we beat Alabama. And nobody’s talking about that right now. That’s the most upsetting thing.

The players have done it. The players have basically forced Coach Sanders to resign, and that’s an awful feeling.

* * * *

Coaches don’t fumble. Coaches don’t throw interceptions. Coaches don’t miss blocks or miss passes.

* * * *

You use coaches as scapegoats. Apparently, that’s what college football has come to now days. You blame coaches rather than players.

* * * *

He said the offense was his ship. Yeah, it’s his ship, but I felt like as the quarterback of this football team I was first in command. And I feel like I let him down.

If people want to blame somebody, then they can blame me.

* * * *

Players have come and players have gone. There have been good years and there have been bad years, but the one constant has been the coaching staff.

They know what to do. They know what a national championship team looks like. They need a little luck along the way.

* * * *

We’re the ones people come to watch. There are 100,000 people in that stadium every Saturday to watch us. They don’t watch the coaches make calls.

They watch us go out and play, and we haven’t put on a good show at all this year.

* * * *

[The crowd at Saturday night's game] should have been saying, “Take out Rick Clausen,” [instead of "Fire Randy Sanders."] Because I played awful and I ultimately cost that man his job.

* * * *

That’s a horrible feeling to have. There’s not enough I can say, and not enough respect I can show the man.

Following the Tennessee Volunteers’ tough loss to South Carolina, the student section was chanting “Fire Sanders.” SportsAnimal99 reported that fans were throwing objects at the players as they left the field.

On his radio show yesterday, Jimmy Hyams told listeners that, based on his observation of Sanders’ interaction with his wife and two daughters following the game, he believed that Sanders’ decision yesterday to resign was primarily due to the impact of all of this on Sanders’ family.

Sanders did, however, downplay the significance of public criticism, saying, “It’s not a response to any criticism. It’s a response to what I see. I’m trying to be accountable for how we have played.”

Hear Hyams’ re-telling of Sanders’ emotional meeting with his family, Sanders’ press conference, and Fulmer’s press conference for yourself.

Here’s a quick roundup of news and bloggers’ posts:

Voluminous has several posts, including transcripts of portions of the audio linked to above and a picture of The Rock on the UT campus, which recently had the painted message, “Fire Randy Sanders, Please.”

Countertop Chronicles, who’s been advocating for Fulmer’s termination, says it’s a start.

UTSports.com has the official word.

GoVolsXtra.com (subscription required) cites an unnamed source as saying that “former UT offensive coordinator David Cutcliffe has been contacted to replace Sanders,” but also reports that “Cutcliffe said he has not been offered a job by UT and is more concerned with Sanders, who is a close friend.”

There’s also this, from the same article:

Sanders said he would have actually benefited monetarily had he been fired and not resigned.

“I’m not trying to beat him to the punch,” Sanders said, referring to Fulmer. “I’m not resigning to keep from getting fired.”

Some people will probably criticize Sanders even for this, saying he failed to recognize and capitalize on his financial incentive to be fired rather than resign. I say he’s a true Volunteer.

John Pennington has the scuttlebutt on the rumors of other imminent coaching changes that are yet to be confirmed, and, in another post, says they got the wrong guy:

From radio hosts to sportswriters to TV guys, the consensus seems to be that there are bigger problems that must be corrected before UT can right the ship. Sanders wasn’t one of them, at least not according to the majority of folks who cover the team.

John Adams echoes that sentiment.

UT players — and their parents — are shocked:

“I’d heard two or three people say Coach (Randy) Sanders was resigning, and I was like, nahh, that’s wrong,” Sears said. “I didn’t believe it because Coach Sanders doesn’t deserve this. He didn’t fumble, he didn’t miss a block or drop a pass.”

The news was so shocking that receiver Bret Smith broke his three-year self-imposed media silence Monday night.

“I was surprised; I didn’t understand why he did it,” Smith said. “We were disappointed. There’s nothing we can do about it now … hopefully something good can come out of all this.”

Some have said that getting Cutcliffe on board would drastically improve Tennessee’s chances at getting coveted quarterback Jimmy Clausen, the younger brother of Casey and Rick, to Tennessee, but here’s what their father has to say about that:

“I’m sure they’ll come at us with (David) Cutcliffe, if they get him, and say he’s all the things Randy wasn’t,” Clausen said. “But you look at how some things have been handled. Really, what will be different for Jimmy?”

Big time college football is a tough business.

GoVolsXtra coverage (subscription required) of last night’s game between the Tennessee Volunteers and Steve Spurrier’s South Carolina Gamecocks:

Mike Strange’s game recap begins:

How low can it go?

Alabama. South Carolina. Who’s next?

Tennessee’s disappointing football season took another hit Saturday night and nobody saw this one coming.

South Carolina ended a 12-year losing streak to the Vols with a stunning 16-15 upset at Neyland Stadium.

. . . and ends with this interesting tidbit:

“We’ll make whatever tough decisions need to be made,’’ Fulmer said. “We will get this back on track.’’

In his post-game post, Spring Forward, FALL BACK… to the Pack, blogger John Pennington says there will be coaching staff changes:

One coach is as good as gone now. Another, who uncharacteristically insulted a reporter to his face a couple of weeks ago, will probably be leaving on his own. And if things continue to go South (can they?), a third coach might leave or be re-assigned.

Pennington had this to say about the Volunteer offense:

(Insert sound of crickets here.) What offense?

* * * *

So what happened vs USC? ZERO playmakers. And terrible gaffes at the worst times.

UT left 2 sure touchdowns out on the turf (which would have meant a sure win). Arian Foster, who looks to have an “I can make you miss” quality that Gerald Riggs lacked, once again fumbled (as he did vs Alabama). This week, it was HIS turn to fumble into the end zone. If he doesn’t drop the ball at the goal line, Sanders’ offense gets the TD.

Then there’s Chris Hannon. I believed Hannon to be the best receiver on the team going into the season. So much for that belief. I was disappointed to see him shake his head and show up Erik Ainge after an incompletion early in the game. How funny, then, that Hannon dropped a SURE touchdown on a perfectly thrown ball later in the game? Perhaps Ainge should have shook his head and shown up Hannon.

Either way, that’s 2 TDs that were ABSOLUTELY there if UT’s “playmakers” could actually make plays.

On attendance for the game:

Tennessee fans call themselves “die hard.” Well, judging from the thousands of empty seats around Neyland Stadium (and the mass exodus at halftime), there are apparently a lot of folks around here that are already dead.

Drew Edwards has the Best and Worst feature and the article Spurrier Leads Gamecocks Over Huge Hump.

Mike Griffith does the impossible and finds the silver lining: special teams improvement, and his Report Card gives the first failing grade I remember seeing: an F for the coaching. Overall, he gave the team a D, and summarized the effort this way:

Tennessee had more talent, more opportunities, and a fired-up home crowd. Phillip Fulmer was the first to admit his team failed, calling the performance “unacceptable.’’ Coaching changes appear imminent, some at the hand of Fulmer, others possibly leaving on their own accord.

Mark Burgess says the Volunteer quarterbacks looked dazed, glassy-eyed, and exasperated, and he quotes quarterback Erik Ainge:

“I heard some of our student section start chanting ‘Fire (offensive coordinator Randy) Sanders’ after the game,” Ainge said. “Coach Sanders didn’t throw an interception, or drop a ball in the end zone, or miss two open receivers on third down like I did.

“It’s not play calling. Guys are open and we put that on us. It’s Rick and I and the offense in general.”

Dave Hooker writes on the Vols’ running back and fumbling woes.

And John Adams has a must-read column on the extent of the Vols’ offensive futility. Just one excerpt:

You can’t comprehend the magnitude of the loss unless you know a little something about the winners.

South Carolina lost by 23 points to Alabama and by 41 to Auburn. It ranks 111th in the country in rushing and 85th in rushing defense.

There’s more.

The Gamecocks start two walk-ons on offense. They lost arguably their best player, wide receiver/quarterback/running back Syvelle Newton, to a season-ending injury last week.

Their injury situation only got worse against the Vols. They lost two more wide receivers — Carlos Thomas and Noah Whiteside — to game-ending injuries in the first half.

With all that stacked against them, the Gamecocks would have to play a mistake-free game to have a chance, right?

Not hardly. They lost two fumbles and threw an interception in the first half. They were penalized 10 times.

It doesn’t get much worse.

Does it?

The Vol Abroad has the early round up on the Big Orange Backlash.

The Tennessee Volunteers, who began the season with national championship aspirations, have just lost 16-15 to the perennial 4th-in-the-SEC-east South Carolina Gamecocks.

The Vols fall to 3-4 overall and 2-4 in the SEC. They are 0-3 in the SEC East. They were favorites to win it.

2005 is shaping up to be the worst season for Tennessee football in a very long time. Add to that the fact that pre-season expectations were higher than they had been for a very long time, and you have serious problems on Rocky Top.

Brace yourselves.

This is not going to be pretty.

South Carolina Gamecock head coach Steve Spurrier is saying that the Tennessee Volunteers should expect a bag full of trick plays this afternoon:

“We’re a pretty loose team,” he said. “It’s not the end of the world if we get beat. They’re the ones that have a little heat on them – oh no, let’s don’t lose to South Carolina.

“There’s probably a little more pressure on their team. We should be loose and let it fly. We can run all of our trick plays. We’ve been saving about 20 of them.”

How will the trick plays fair when they’re run by Gamecocks instead of Gators and when they’re run against the likes of Mahelona, Haralson, Hall, Simon, and Gaither?

Tune in tonight at 7:45 p.m. on ESPN2.

Dave Hooker has a nice introductory piece on Tennessee Volunteer running back Arian Foster, who will get his first start in place of injured back Gerald Riggs tomorrow night against the South Carolina Gamecocks.

Randy Sanders couldn’t believe what he saw.

Tennessee’s offensive coordinator was in San Diego to recruit quarterback Richard Kovalcheck. The Vols were in desperate need for a quarterback in the 2003 class.

The field was loaded with talent. Kovalcheck’s teammate was tailback Reggie Bush, who is a Heisman candidate this year with Southern Cal.

Sanders, however, couldn’t take his eyes off the junior tailback on the opposing team from Mission Bay High School.

“I had no clue that there were any other prospects on the field,” Sanders said. “The way Arian played and the way he ran that night, it was pretty obvious that he was a good football player.”

On the one hand, it’s a bit disturbing to hear that Sanders had no clue that Reggie Bush was a prospect (he probably didn’t mean that), but on the other hand, it sure is encouraging to think that Foster might have the same potential as Bush.