Pete Fiutak’s front page feature on College Football News yesterday examined the 2006 Tennessee Volunteer football team.  Loaded with information, the gist of it was that 2005 really wasn’t as bad as it may have seemed.  Fiutak acknowledged the poor results but said that (1) losses to Florida, Georgia, and Notre Dame were nothing to be ashamed of; (2) losses to Alabama and South Carolina came down to a few “fluky” plays, and (3) the loss to Vanderbilt, while inexcusable, was collateral damage of the season-long flame out.

Sounds an awful lot like Fulmer saying “we were only a couple of plays of beating the tar out of the Longhorns for the national championship” or whatever he said at the end of last year.  Funny thing is, Fiutak may actually be right.  Don’t expect a VFRT recap of last season until later this summer, but I have thrown everything into a pot and turned up the heat to let it simmer, and everytime I peek in there, it’s looking like the theme will be that a lot of little things combined into a negative tipping point, a total mess at the conclusion of a high-stakes game of Don’t-Spill-the-Beans.  If the coaches and players and fans can do a lot of little things different this year, and they’re ceretainly trying, a positive tipping point is not inconceivable.

Elsewhere, a fan and poster on VolNation’s message board has some thoughts on offensive coordinator David Cutcliffe’s recent comments at an alumni event in West Palm Beach, Florida.  Also, there are conflicting reports on the reason for Major Wingate’s indefinite suspension from the basketball team.  GoVolsXtra reported that it was for failing to show up for a scheduled drug test, while Scout.com and the Tennessean reported that Wingate actually tested positive for marijuana.  Dope.

Finally, Rivals.com continues its series on getting to know the newcomers to the football team by featuring LaMarcus Thompson and reports on a fictional encounter between Dr. Custom, Mr. Fleeting, and Mr. Middle arguing about their respective expectations for the upcoming football season.

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.