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.

This will be short, as I’m working up a response to Burnt Orange Nation’s call for thoughts from a Tennessee perspective on two-quarterback systems. Short version: no. Peter, if you’re reading, I’m not sure whether you’re getting my emails. If you are, and you are ignoring me on purpose and were wanting some other Tennessee blogger to respond instead, then, well, this is me, scratching a non-existent itch on the back of my head in embarassment after thinking you were waving to me instead of the person behind me.

Jim Bob Cooter got a 34 on the ACT? That’s . . . um, pretty good. Being smart apparently doesn’t keep you from doing something stupid, though, does it? Jim Bob, love ya, man, but go to bed, okay?

Respected NFL talent analyst Gil Brandt apparently thinks former UT tight end Jason Witten is the best young tight end in the NFL. Witten, an Elizabethton native, was way undervalued in the NFL draft, and the Cowboys got a deal.

New recruit Brent Vinson has been nothing but books since signing day, hoping to avoid ineligibility so he can join the Vols this fall. Somebody needs Jim Bob.

Oh, and I got my hair cut yesterday. Woo hoo. I’ve been seeing the sign for the new hair place — Sports Clips — for a couple of months now, and thought it was just another Super Fantastic Sam’s Cost Cutters place. But it’s not. It’s a hair place for guys. There’s a big screen t.v. tuned to ESPN in the waiting area instead of glossy magazines called Hair Styles of Rich and Famous Women Who Eat on a Weekly Basis Yet Have Superb Hair Follicles. Stylists wear jogging pants and keep their stuff in lockers. Sports parapha, paraphe, stuff (where’s Jim Bob when you need to spell a word?) adorns (learnt that one from Cooter) the walls. And the cherry on top? Little televisions at each station so you can catch up on the World Cup instead of chatting about the weather for twenty minutes. How was my haircut? Hey, we’re guys, what does it matter? It just needs to be shorter. (Actually, Kelly, my stylist was excellent, and I got a very nice cut that should last me about a month.) Anyway, it’s Sports Clips. Haircuts for guys. Check ‘em out.

Before starting the player pages for Tennessee’s newest recruits, I of course had to figure out who should be first, and that turned out to be more of a chore than I thought it would, mostly because it involved math. So the first of the player pages will have to wait until this weekend.

But I have ranked the players according to how the various recruiting services viewed them. Here’s my methodology, as subjective as it may be: Since Scout.com and Rivals.com seem to be the Pepsi and Coke of recruiting sources, I first averaged the star ratings of each player and ranked accordingly. I used ESPN.com’s “grade” for each player to break any ties. Any ties after that were broken by complete subjectivity without any thought whatsoever because it was getting late.

So here are the newest Tennessee Volunteers, sorted by highest ranking:

This weekend, I’ll start the player pages, beginning with Walter Fisher. See ya then.

The results are in for yesterday’s National Signing Day, and the Tennessee Volunteers followed up their horrible 5-6 season with a decent, but sub-par, recruiting season.

Scout.com has the Tennessee Volunteer 2006 recruiting class ranked at No. 24 nationally and No. 7 in the SEC behind Florida (No. 2), Georgia (No. 4), LSU (No. 7), Auburn (No. 9), Mississippi (No. 15), and Alabama (No. 18).

Rivals.com has Tennessee at No. 23 nationally and No. 7 in the SEC behind the same teams.

ESPN? No. 15 nationally, and No. 6 in the SEC, behind all of the same teams except Ole Miss.

Here are the players that committed yesterday:

• Quarterbacks
• Nick Stephens
• Running Backs
• Dustin Lindsey
• Wide Receivers
• Quintin Hancock
• Stephaun Raines
• Tight Ends
• Lee Smith
• Luke Stocker
• Offensive Linemen
• Ramone Johnson
• Jacques McClendon
• Darius Myers
• Cody Pope
• Defensive Linemen
• Walter Fisher
• Blake Garretson
• Chase Nelson
• Jarrod Shaw
• Victor Thomas
• Linebackers
• Dorian Davis
• LaMarcus Thompson
• Gerald Williams
• Defensive Backs
• Justin Garrett
• Kickers
• Chad Cunningham
• Daniel Lincoln
• Athletes
• Brent Vinson

Get to know these guys with me starting tomorrow, when I’ll start compiling information about the new players, giving each one a dedicated page.