Tennessee football Coach Phillip Fulmer is up to his eyelids in responsibility. What off-season? While USC Coach Pete Carroll sips umbrella drinks on the island beaches of Hawaii trying to figure out which potential NFL job to use to get more money out of Southern Cal, CPF will change the face of his offensive staff, figure out a way to drastically change the direction of a recruiting year and organize a mental game-plan to play within a division of a conference that may feature two of the top three pre-season teams in America.

It’s now being reported by several media outlets that Richmond head coach Dave Clawson will be named as the new offensive coordinator at Tennessee.

Tennessee will try to continue their winning ways at Thompson Boling Arena tonight as they welcome the Ole Miss Rebels to town for the SEC conference opener for each team. Home games have been rare in Knoxville as of late. Tonight’s 8pm tipoff marks only the second home game for the Vols in the past 39 days.

With the nonconference skirmishes now essentially behind us, it’s time to turn our attention to the conference wars. Here are six things to look for as league play hits its stride this week:

Stan Drayton has been officially named as the new running backs coach at Tennessee according to the Tennessean.

Ohio State is on the move. Within the span of one year they have procured their own television network, dominated the Big Ten in two sports, and added three students bringing their statewide enrollment up to 1,000,000 (I just made that one up). Ohio State is big time.

Lots of news today in Knoxville but none bigger than the continued coaching search on the hill. Much of today’s speculation centers around Richmond head coach Dave Clawson who reportedly was in town today visiting with Coach Fulmer. Clawson is in his fourth year with the Spiders and has developed a reputation as a program builder.

The coaching carousel continues to spin. Round and round it goes where it stops nobody knows. As long as it’s been spinning, and it feels like it’s been a while, we don’t appear to be any closer to finding out who will be named Tennessee’s next offensive coordinator than we were when the process began.

In case you haven’t had enough of the Outback Bowl yet, I ran across these ESPN highlights. It’s very thorough, spanning over eleven minutes in length. Enjoy!

According to an article this morning in the Times Free Press, Demetrice Morley has met the academic requirements to re-enroll for the spring semester at Tennessee. In order for Morley to be eligible to play next season however, the formal process will need to be completed. That’s expected to happen sometime next week.