The Volunteers apparently followed up their less-than-impressive all-live scrimmage on Saturday with a decent practice yesterday. A couple of quick notes:

• Jacques McClendon “got better.”
• Fulmer says “it’s good to see LaMarcus Coker doing what he’s doing.”
• Safety Antonio Wardlow is pushing for more playing time.
• Ellix Wilson got a bit banged up, but should be fine.
• Running back Arian Foster, who fumbled during Saturday’s scrimmage, carried a football with him to church on Sunday.

I told you that would be quick.

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.

Ouch. Ouch! That hurts, stop it! Ooowwwwwwwwww.

I can put all of today’s earth-shattering news into a single sentence: Defensive tackle Justin Harrell got his tonsils removed, and Luke Stocker, Jacques McClendon, and Lee Smith are enrolled in the first session of summer school while most of the rest of the newcomers are expected to enroll in July for the second session.

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.