Doug Matthews – a former Tennessee assistant coach and friend of Fulmer – told WGFX-FM in Nashville that communication had been made by Arkansas with Fulmer, who denied at the time having been contacted by the Razorbacks.

Arkansas, of course, decided to hire John L. Smith, who served as an assistant in Fayetteville from 2009-11 before leaving for a brief stint as Weber State’s head coach.

But Fulmer, who was selected to the College Football Hall of Fame on Tuesday, made it clear he would have been very interested in coaching at Arkansas had the Razorbacks offered him the position.

“The Arkansas job I would have jumped all over,” Fulmer said Tuesday during an interview on WGFX. “That was a really special situation and a really good team and had a chance. And that’s what I’ve said all along – I’m looking for an opportunity you can go compete for championships. At this stage in my career, I’m not looking for a dead end somewhere.

“I miss coaching. I also enjoy time with my family and children and grandchildren and all those things and the business that I’m in. Once you’ve done it for as long as I have, you have a passion for young people and the competition and all those things. You obviously miss it.”

Fulmer, who told WGFX that Arkansas officials spoke to his representatives, said he recognized why the Razorbacks went with Smith.

“I certainly understand the familiarity with John L. was a good thing for them as it turns out and I hope he does well,” Fulmer said.

Fulmer is more than familiar with Tennessee having served as a player, assistant coach and head coach at the school. He was asked if he could see himself returning to the school in an administrative or other role in the future.

“You never say never in the athletics world,” Fulmer said. “Today is kind of more of a day to celebrate what all we accomplished as a staff and as an organization during that time and not really to reflect on what could be somewhere down the road. Tennessee is my school and I love it dearly and the people that had anything to do with my leaving Tennessee are not there any longer and we’ll see what happens.”

Tennessee athletic director Dave Hart appears hopeful that Fulmer’s presence on campus will be more frequent. He was asked Tuesday during the school’s caravan stop if he would like to see Fulmer around the program more often in the future.

“Absolutely, and that’s what I’ve stressed to him,” Hart said.

2. Once highly-touted quarterback Phillip Sims has decided to transfer from Alabama.

3. Another Alabama defender, this time Courtney Upshaw, went quickly in the NFL draft on Friday.

4. Recruits were paying attention to Alabama’s success in the draft on Thursday night.

5. Here’s a look at the SEC defenders selected in the NFL’s first round.

6. Tony Barnhart of CBSSports.com believes Nick Saban’s team is helping provide hope to Tuscaloosa.

7. One writer believes former Gator Janoris Jenkins – taken by St. Louis - will be the next Pacman Jones.

8. Outside of Jankins, Florida saw its draft drought continue into the second day of the draft.

9. Here’s a preview for Texas A&M’s upcoming spring game at Kyle Field.

10. We’ll get a new look at Texas A&M’s defense on Saturday.

11. Mark Wiedmer of the Chattanooga News-Free Press shows us a nice side of Tennessee coach Derek Dooley.

12. Bill Belichick believes former Arkansas defensive end Jake Bequette will be productive in New England.

13. Arkansas hasn’t had any receivers selected in the draft. That will change today.

14. Matt Hayes of Sporting News believes it’s time for college football to finally land a commissioner.

15. The LSU Board of Supervisors has unanimously approved an expansion of LSU’s Tiger Stadium.

16. SEC coaches can use the NFL draft as a three-day recruiting tool.

17. Former Georgia offensive lineman Cordy Glenn will help where needed in Buffalo.

Extra:

18. Here’s a look at the conference champion only idea for the future BCS.

19. Here’s another preview of Missouri’s offense as it enters the SEC.

20. Vanderbilt coach James Franklin will surely use Casey Heyward’s drafting in recruiting.

First, some background.  Rogers was initially committed to Georgia until Derek Dooley — who’d just taken over at Tennessee — flipped his commitment late in the process in 2010 by signing a package deal with Rogers’ high school quarterback buddy and Vanderbilt target Nash Nance.

By July of that year, Rogers had been arrested for his role in a bar brawl involving a number of Tennessee teammates.  Since then, his attitude has come into question repeatedly.

Reporters saw him yelling at former UT receivers coach Charlie Baggett on the sideline of the Vols’ loss to Kentucky last fall.  Shortly after that game, Baggett retired (but was paid a severance package as though he’d been dismissed).

This offseason Rogers missed two weeks of workouts with Tennessee’s training staff.  It was reported at the time that he had had multiple altercations with the Vols’ strength and conditioning coaches.

During a pre-spring press conference on Sunday, Dooley said that Rogers had had a good offseason but he refused to discuss his suspension from workouts.  “He’s like the rest of the team.  He’s shown a lot of progress, he grew as a player emotionally, but he has a long way to go.”

The mercurial wideout was on the practice fields Monday and Tuesday of this week.

But Volquest.com — the Rivals site covering Tennessee — reported that Rogers was not expected to be at practice today.  InsideTennessee.com — the Scout site covering the Vols — confirmed that he is not on hand.  (That’s all behind paywalls, folks.)

All this follows two mysterious tweets from Rogers last night:

“Georgia State.  Wasup?”

And…

“I cannot wait to talk to the media tomorrow.  It finally comes out.”

Dooley is expected to address Rogers’ status with the Volunteer squad this morning after UT’s practice.  Until then, Vol fans must once again wonder if the player who had 67 catches for 1,040 yards and nine touchdowns last season will indeed be wearing orange this fall.

Tennessee’s coach can’t afford another season of internal chemistry issues on his football team.  But with his job likely on the line this fall, Dooley might not be able to afford the loss of one of his most talented players, either.

From an obnoxious throat slash gesture as a freshman to reports of attitude problems on and off the field as a sophomore, Bray has become a hot button topic on Vol messageboards.

From what he said yesterday in Knoxville, however, it sounds like someone’s convinced him it’s time to grow up:

“Last year, I wasn’t the smartest guy.  Kind of dumb.  This year I’m trying to get my act together and trying to get this team where it needs to be…

I’ve tried to be a leader as much as possible.  I’ve kind of struggled at it, but I’m working on it.”

Bray was one of a number of Vols rumored to have had little interest in reaching bowl eligibility status in UT’s finale against Kentucky last year — a game UT lost, snapping the nation’s longest winning streak of one team whooping another.  It’s been reported that Bray and others didn’t care about playing in a “lesser” bowl game.

Even after the UK loss, when asked if missing a bowl game would eat at him over the offseason, Bray suggested that he was actually looking forward to the time off.  So while he’s approached and even eclipsed some of Peyton Manning’s passing numbers, he’s not shown anything approaching the same kind of attitude or work ethic.

Mannings and Bradys and Brees and Rodgers don’t grow on trees.  There are plenty of talented guys who can’t get out of their own way: Ryan Leaf, Todd Marinovich, and even Stephen Garcia.  Cautionary tales all.

For now, Bray is in the Ryan Mallett category.  He has the physical tools and ability to be a star, but does he have the mental make-up to overcome a daffy off-field reputation?  The jury is out with Mallett in the NFL.  And it’s very much out on Bray at Tennessee.

But as far as UT fans are concerned, at least he seems to be saying some of the right things this spring.

In case you’re wondering — or haven’t been keeping up with the Vanderbilt v. Maryland case currently being hashed out by the ACC and SEC — it’s not kosher for the coach of one school to contact a player at another school in order to elicit a transfer.  In fact, it’s a secondary NCAA violation (though it seems like player-poaching should land more in the “major” violation category).

Cooper was the MAC’s Freshman of the Year in 2010.  After advancing to the Sweet Sixteen last night, the player revealed that Baylor and Tennessee came after him.  (Maybe Baylor president Kenneth Starr can investigate those claims.)

Cooper’s parents — Donell and Dionne — backed up their son’s story and suggested a few more coaches contacted them as well.  The father said Pearl “tried the hardest” to talk his son into leaving Ohio.  But, “It’s hard to say how many there were contacting us.  It was shocking to me that so many coaches would do that behind a school’s back.”

“It was surprising, being my first experience, that schools were wanting me to come play for their programs,” the younger Cooper said.  He claimed that he never considered leaving the Bobcat program.

Baylor’s Drew told The New York Times last night that once Cooper signed with Ohio, “I never talked with the mom or the dad or DJ.”

This isn’t a concern for Tennessee moving forward as Pearl has already been dismissed for NCAA rules violations.  The ex-coach — who’s actually a very good co-host on Sirius/XM radio — was hit with a three-year “show cause” penalty by the NCAA.

UPDATE — Jimmy Hyams of WNML-AM/FM in Knoxville has tweeted that Pearl — like Drew — denies the charge.  Tennessee knocked Ohio from the NCAA Tournament in 2010 and Pearl claims he complimented Cooper after the game, but: “I never reached out to him, I never had contact with him or his family.”

Except in the case of ex-Tennessee employee Steve Rubio.  The school announced yesterday that he is no longer employed by the university and no longer holds the title of director of player personnel.

Rubio was a Lane Kiffin hire in Knoxville.  He came to Tennessee from Central Florida where he had served as the Golden Knight’s director of player personnel.  After his arrival at Tennessee, UCF got spanked by the NCAA and coach George O’Leary — along with the NCAA — laid plenty of the blame at Rubio’s doorstep.

In October of 2009, Rubio — serving as a recruiting intern for the Vols — visited his old Florida high school along with Kiffin while UT’s head coach made a recruiting visit there.  That’s a no-no.  The NCAA investigated the matter.

Still, Rubio was eventually promoted to the position of director of player personnel and stayed on Tennessee’s staff after Derek Dooley’s arrival.  Now gone, the school won’t say if he left on his own or was asked to depart.

Taylor told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution two weeks ago that Saban wanted him to grayshirt and become a part of the Tide’s 2013 class.  Taylor waffled back and forth before deciding to take the bird in hand UK was offering.

Taylor is recovering from a torn ACL he suffered last September.

That’s dumb and dumber in many folks’ minds.  And some of those people let Hamilton know about it in a ridiculous manner — with threats.

Speaking to The Chattanooga Times Free Press, Hamilton said he “received several threats and it reached a point that I moved my family out of Knoxville for several days last spring and I was even assigned police protection.”

Surprising?  Not in the least.  Kiffin’s family claimed they received death threats on the way out of Knoxville as well.  Just this past week, San Francisco 49er Kyle Williams received death threats via Twitter after fumbling away his team’s shot at a Super Bowl.

In the age of the internet, everyone is anonymous.  That cloaked status encourages decent people to behave like children and imbalanced people to behave like criminals.  If booze makes folks feel 10 feet tall and bullet proof, the anonymity of the internet allows some to view themselves as the biggest, baddest asses in the world.

Well, at least the ass part is true.

Hamilton — who’s now working as the president of a Nashville-based charity — says he has no regrets about the way he did his job, including the hires of Kiffin and Pearl.  “Lane was the right person for the job at that time.  I hate how things worked out in the end, but there was no way of seeing that when we made that hire.”

“I know every move I made while I was at UT was made with the best interest of the university in mind.  I have confidence in the decision to hire Lane, and Bruce had an unbelievable run.  Again, I hate how things ended with those two examples.  I’m like anyone else and there are times when you reflect on decisions and what you might have done differently.  In any area of your life, all you can do is your best every day, and some days I felt better about my decisions than others.”

In this writer’s view, Hamilton deserves heat from Tennessee fans because ultimately the buck stopped at his desk.  But in terms of his individual decisions, he wasn’t the clown he’s often been made out to be.

He fired Phillip Fulmer, but Fulmer had had two losing seasons in his last four and hadn’t won an SEC title in a decade at the time of his dismissal.

Had Hamilton hired a good replacement, no one would be claiming today that Tennessee should have held on to its legendary ex-coach.  Interestingly, Hamilton did — it seems — hire a darn good coach.  Kiffin and crew have done an excellent job at Southern Cal so far (though they’re about to feel the brunt of recruiting restrictions and NCAA penalties).

Hamilton’s mistake with Kiffin was not weighing the possibility that Pete Carroll might leave Southern Cal and the Trojans might come after the ex-Carroll aide.  (In truth, though, who at the time would have foreseen all that?)  But that’s exactly what happened and Kiffin left Tennessee high and dry.  And that burned the Vol football house to the ground.  Two years of attrition and a coaching change right before signing day aren’t appealing to prospective coaches.

Will Muschamp turned down millions to replace Kiffin.  Only the likes of Derek Dooley would take such a job.  So while Hamilton is pilloried for “finding” Dooley, in reality, his candidate pool was going to be awfully shallow simply due to circumstances.

As for Pearl, the ex-coach took Tennessee basketball to unseen heights, but he blew his career apart with a lie to NCAA investigators and a phone call to a prospect’s father in an attempt to keep the person quiet about a barbecue.  The idea that Hamilton is to blame for Pearl’s downfall is laughable.  Ditto the notion that UT could’ve kept Pearl and his staff.  Hard to do that when the coach lands a three-year show cause penalty and recruiting ban.

Hamilton oversaw a comedy of errors, yes, but fate and the actions of other people played a large role in his demise.  Had Kiffin not abandoned him after a year and had Pearl not found it necessary to cover up what would have been a secondary violation, Hamilton might still be Tennessee’s athletic director overseeing a pair of healthy programs.

Of course, just for suggesting that, I’ll probably get a couple of death threats.

In an email to media members today, Arnett verifies Dooley’s reversal of field:

“My decision to leave the University of Tennessee has nothing to do with football, coaches, players or anything related to the school.  It is an will always remain solely based off of the importance of me keeping my beliefs and family first…

(Dooley’s) decision to release me unconditionally comes as a sign of a compassionate and empathetic coach.  I will never be able to express fully my appreciations and gratitude for his decision.

All good things take time and work.  UT has always surpassed the rest and I believe in due time they will be back to the No. 1 program in the SEC.  If I did not have issues within my family, you could guarantee that I would continue to be a VOL.”

Dooley — feeling quite a bit of heat from the press and likely on the recruiting trail — has retreated.  That’s a wise choice.  For as we wrote last week, this was a PR battle that he could not win at a time when he did not need any more losses… or battles, for that matter.

Agree with the coach’s decision or not — and the vast majority do think it’s better to let the player go — this move should take an arrow from the quiver of rival SEC recruiters: “You don’t want to play for that heartless guy, do you?”

Now Dooley’s “compassionate and empathetic.”  That’s a lot easier sell in recruits’ living rooms.

Yesterday, freshman receiver DeAnthony Arnett let it be known that he wants to return to his home state of Michigan to be closer to his father, whose poor health has worsened in recent months.

Soon after, UT announced that Dooley would not allow Arnett to have a free pass out of town.  According to an email the player sent to the media, Michigan and Michigan State are off limits to him:

“If I wanted to attend The University of Michigan and Michigan State University then I would have to pay for school instead of be on the Scholorship.  I dont know whats next my family cant afford to pay for school and my father health reason isnt good enough excuse for me to attend a BCS school close to home.”

Sidenote — It’s ridiculous what Twitter and texting are doing to the English language.  Do kids even know what an apostrophe is anymore?

Back to the topic, Dooley appears A-OK with Arnett heading to the Mid-American Conference, but he doesn’t want him going to a football power.  Here’s a UT spokesperson’s take on the situation:

“We’re not denying him a release to be near his family, get a good education and play Division I football at the same time, but we do have a policy of not releasing players to schools we either play or recruit against.”

Outside of bowl games — and Dooley didn’t have to worry about that one this year — the Vols don’t meet up with the Wolverines and Spartans often.  In fact, in more than a century of football, UT has played Michigan once and State never.  And it’s not as if Tennessee squares off with great regularity against those schools on the recruiting trail, either.

Admittedly, no one can be sure if Arnett is seeking a transfer just because he wants to be near his father.  Rumors suggest he was tight with departed receivers coach Charlie Baggett.  So maybe he wants out because he’s disgruntled.  And it’s also possible that UT coaches feel Michigan or MSU might have tampered with the player.  Who knows?

But for Dooley, this is a PR battle he doesn’t need to fight right now.  He’s already played hardball with two players who wanted to transfer when he took over — Lane Kiffin-signee Bryce Brown and Phillip Fulmer-signee Aaron Douglas both met major resistance in their attempts to leave Knoxville.  Now Arnett is getting the same treatment and not everyone on the Tennessee messageboards is thrilled about it.

Nick Saban — who Dooley served under — and Les Miles can get away with being tough guys in these types of matters because they win.  Dooley hasn’t.  So he’s not getting universal support in his decision to block a player whose father is sick from playing at a big school (which could aid Arnett’s professional aspirations).

We view it as another public relations misstep for a coach who lost at Kentucky to close the season and then decided to go into silent mode.  Many ornery Vol fans have voiced their displeasure with their coach’s disappearance since November.

Dooley should be worried about winning with the guys he’s got.  If a kid wants to transfer because he’s homesick or his playing time isn’t what he’d hoped, fine, he should hold onto him.  But this one looks bad.  And UT fans are split over their coach’s move.

That’s not what Dooley needs right now.  Because if he doesn’t start winning in 2012, he might spend the next few years of his career in the MAC right along with Arnett.

Eventually, the Tennessee administration saw the writing on the wall, ousted Pearl and told the NCAA, “He did it!”

So when the Ohio State/Jim Tressel scandal broke last spring, many Vol fans took to the comment boxes on this site to ask, “Why aren’t ESPN and the NCAA giving OSU as hard a time as they gave our Vols?”

“Why isn’t Tressel out of a job?”

Our answer at the time?  Be patient.

Indeed, the Tressel/Buckeye blow-up was ESPN’s go-to story all offseason.  Like Tennessee, Ohio State eventually nuked Tressel and said, “He did it!”

But that was OSU’s battle with the media.  Today the NCAA got their pound of flesh.

In all NCAA cases, the school getting smacked always believes it’s being unjustly penalized.  And everyone else believes that school is getting a hand slap from a velvet glove.

Tennessee fans should not be making any such claims about Ohio State today.  Here’s why:

* The NCAA handed Pearl a three-year “show cause” penalty.

The NCAA handed Tressel a five-year “show cause” penalty.

* The NCAA did not give the Tennessee program a postseason ban.

The NCAA did give Ohio State a one-year bowl ban for next season (in spite of OSU AD Gene Smith publicly stating that he would be shocked and angered by such a ban).

* The NCAA did accept Tennessee’s self-imposed sanctions.

The NCAA did not accept Ohio State’s self-imposed sanctions and instead chose to nearly double their lost scholarships (from five to nine over a three-year period) and to increase their probationary period from two years to three.

Today’s ruling shows us two things.  First, that the NCAA isn’t afraid to smack around a big-time program.  Sure, many national columnists will claim otherwise in the hours and days ahead because they know what kind of red meat their readers are hungry for… and can you ever remember a columnist not calling for someone to get rougher penalties and punishments?  (We are the Puritans of our age.)  But in reality, the oft-repeated idea of the NCAA looking out for big schools has been a myth for 20 years.  Alabama fans know what I’m talking about.  Ditto Southern Cal fans.  The NCAA is no longer going to hit Cleveland State with probation if Kentucky cheats, as Jerry Tarkanian once joked.

Second, the NCAA has shown again — as it did in Pearl’s case — that it has begun to go after coaches who cheat and lie with as much or more ferocity than it does the schools that employ those coaches.  Not even national the columnists desperate for pageviews can say the NCAA didn’t hit Pearl and Tressel with plenty of gusto.  Perhaps after decades of watching schools cheat, get caught and then cheat again, the NCAA has realized that the coaches — especially those who lie and cover-up — are the ones to spank.  If there’s a fear of unemployment, that might just change a coach’s ways.

All spring and summer we knew and we wrote that Ohio State and Tressel would get theirs.  Today they did.  And they got it a lot worse than Tennessee did, despite the fact that many Big Orange faithful had expected just the opposite.

All of that’s what’s swirling around the Tennessee program heading into a bowl-less offseason.  Good luck, Derek Dooley.

Yesterday, tailback Tauren Poole — one of the seniors who called out some younger teammates after the Vols’ loss to Kentucky on Saturday — opened up about the mess at UT on WNOX-FM in Knoxville yesterday.

Asked whether — in hindsight — he would go to UT again, Poole said:

“If you’d have told me Coach (Phillip) Fulmer would have gotten fired and then this coach, that coach, this strength coach, that position coach, I probably wouldn’t have came here because I knew it would have been a dysfunctional setup, an unstable program… It was a tough situation.  It was a roller-coaster ride.”

And what does he mean by roller-coaster ride?

“Guys kind of shut it down (against Kentucky).  All the seniors, we cared.  We cared more than a lot of those guys out there.  And that’s expected, but we weren’t getting it back.  Those guys have next year to look forward to.  We don’t.  My career is over at UT.”

And what about his coach’s critical tongue… which he uses to critique his players in the media with great regularity?

“Coach Dooley is a very critical guy.  He’s critical of his players and coaches.  It’s criticism and you’ve got to take it in.  Guys just got to have thick skin with Coach Dooley.  He’s going to speak his mind.  Every minute of the day, every moment, if he’s got an opinion, he’s going to tell you.  That’s just the type of guy he is.”

Dooley is rebuilding Tennessee’s roster and is one his way to a third-consecutive Top 15 signing class.  As for building a “team,” well, it sounds like that’s his next challenge.

So what’s all the turmoil?  Try this:

* After the loss to Kentucky, more than one outgoing UT senior claimed that some members of the Vol squad care more about their stats than the team.  They suggested that not everyone wanted to play this past Saturday.

* Some Volunteers weren’t ready to volunteer for duty at a “lesser” bowl game according to one upperclassman.  “Why play hard in Lexington if the reward is simply a trip to Memphis or Nashville?”

* Rumors abound that the suspensions of four backups prior to last week’s game led to a near revolt among players as practices in Knoxville devolved into little more than walk-throughs.

* The team lacks adult supervision from within.  Only 14 seniors were on Dooley’s squad this year.  Of those, none were standouts.  (That’s a by-product of the 18 players lost during the Phillip Fulmer and Lane Kiffin transitions.)  So the younger players on the team — and the team was made up mostly of freshmen and sophomores — had no proven, elder leaders to follow.

* With no veteran leaders, players began to follow the best players on the team and unfortunately for UT fans, players like quarterback Tyler Bray and receiver Da’rick Rogers aren’t believed to have the best attitudes on the squads.

* To make matters worse, Dooley himself helped to create an air of negativity by spending a heckuva lot of time in the press ripping his players.  Reports from those close to the program say more than once players were ready to walk away from Dooley’s program as a result of being thrown under the coach’s bus.  (Like him or not, there’s not much about Derek Dooley’s demeanor that reminds one of his father, Vince.)

Suffice to say, Vol fans aren’t happy.  Even though they should have known this was coming.

The Tennessee media and many across the SEC — including this site — expected two straight years of so-so football as Dooley tried to dig out from the mess created by his predecessors.  But college football fans aren’t much for patience, even when they’ve been told they’ll need to have some.

Now, many people are calling for Dooley to be fired immediately.  “Why prolong the obvious,” they ask?

For one, because a long-term view suggests that UT’s best bet is to stick with Dooley for at least one more season and allow him to further stabilize the program from a roster standpoint.  Tennessee will have depth and experience for the first time in three years in 2012.  And the Vol coach is likely to bring in his third-straight Top 15 recruiting class next February.

To blow him up now would mean more turnover, further attrition.  In other words — a deeper hole for the next guy to dig out of.  Before hiring Dooley, Tennessee tried to throw money at Will Muschamp and even gave a call to Jon Gruden.  But Gruden had no interest and Muschamp told the Vols they would be looking at a three-year rebuilding project (he knew what he was talking about).

So what would potential hires say to new AD Dave Hart if he asked them to become the school’s fourth head coach since 2008?   Probably something similar to what Muschamp said.

There’s nothing on his resume — other than his last name and a connection to Nick Saban — to suggest that Dooley is the right guy for Tennessee.  But that doesn’t mean he won’t become the right person.  Certainly his first two seasons were negatively impacted by the work of his predecessors (though some troubles were exacerbated by his own poor moves).

But even if Dooley isn’t the right guy for Knoxville, Vol fans had better hope Hart doesn’t listen to their complaints and follow the lead of Kansas and Memphis and fire his coach after two seasons.  There’s a reasons those programs are Kansas and Memphis.

If Tennessee were to fire Dooley now, it would only set back the school’s rebuilding efforts.  Again.

For those who didn’t see it, Vanderbilt’s Jordan Rodgers was picked off by Tennessee defensive back Eric Gordon during the first session of the teams’ overtime contest.  Gordon’s knee got low to the ground as he caught the ball, but it did not touch.  Unfortunately, head linesman Gus Morris — with an obscured view — blew his whistle and ran to mark the ball down.  Only… no one on the field stopped playing and Gordon returned the ball 90+ yards for an apparent 27-21 game-winning score.

But Derek Dooley’s postgame celebration — like those at last year’s LSU and North Carolina games — was cut short.  Official Marc Curles informed the crowd of the following:

“The ruling on the field (is) the ball was fumbled, recovered by Tennessee (player Gordon) with his knee on the ground.  Therefore the runner is down, Vanderbilt’s series is over and Tennessee gets the ball, first and 10 on the 25 (yard-line).”

Technically, that should’ve been it for Gordon’s interception.  The Vol offense should have trotted onto the field and attempted to end the game with a touchdown or field goal.  The game should have continued.

But Curles’ crew reversed direction:

“The previous play is under further review.  Although the runner’s knee was ruled down, there was no whistle or signal.”

Upon review, it was clear that Gordon’s knee had not touched the ground and Tennessee was granted the touchdown and an immediate victory.

But here’s the rub — inadvertent whistles can’t be reviewed.  For the sake of player safety, once a whistle blows — right or wrong — the play is dead.  End of story.  Except in this case.

So in a way, two wrongs did indeed make a right:

* The linesman was wrong to rule Gordon down.

* The crew was wrong to review the play.

* But no one was going to stop Gordon on his way to the end zone in the first place, so Tennessee did deserve to win the game.

Observations:

* Officials will make mistakes.  Just as coaches make bad play calls and players put the ball on the turf, officials will blow calls.  It happens.  And with our current technology we certainly see every missed call over and over and over again.  Mistakes are part of the game.  Always have been, always will be.

But…

* We believe the league needs to better explain how it was that Curles flipped on his mic and told the Neyland Stadium crowd that “there was no whistle or signal,” when clearly Morris did blow his whistle — it was audible during the live broadcast on ESPNU — and did run onto the field to mark the ball down.

So far, SEC coordinator of officials Steve Shaw has put out only the following release:

“On the last play of the Vanderbilt-Tennessee game, in overtime, the Tennessee defender intercepted the pass, his knee did not touch the ground and he returned the interception for a touchdown.  During the play, the head linesman incorrectly ruled that the Tennessee player’s knee was down when he intercepted the pass by blowing his whistle and giving the dead ball signal.  The play was reviewed as if there was no whistle on the field, and as a result, overturned the incorrect ruling.  By rule, if there was a whistle blown, the play is not reviewable.”

So how is it a crew could claim that a whistle was never blown when it clearly was?  More than a question of a correct or missed call, this situation creates doubts about the credibility of SEC officials.  In a world where many fans honestly believe the SEC office and its refs are “out to get” their favorite teams, it’s bad practice to have a crew openly mislead tens of thousands of fans in the stands and hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of fans watching at home on television.

We’re not calling for heads here.  As we noted above, mistakes happen.  But the league needs to comment on the crew’s decision to review that play after a whistle had been blown.

*  Watching the Tennessee-Vanderbilt situation unfold, the Immaculate Reception game came to mind.  It’s become an urban legend that the officials in that game phoned upstairs to see if they would have police protection should they rule that Franco Harris did not catch that now-famous, deflected pass from Terry Bradshaw.  Legend has it they were told they would get no such protection so they quickly returned to the field, ruled the play a touchdown, thrilled thousands of Steeler fans at Three Rivers Stadium, and promptly got the heck out of Dodge.

If Tennessee had had its third victory in two years taken off the board, you can imagine the reaction of Volunteer fans.  Certainly, the SEC officials had plenty of motivation on Saturday night to correct their blown call… even if it meant breaking another rule to do it.

* How lucky was the SEC that it was the Tennessee-Vanderbilt overtime session that ended under bizarre circumstances and not the Alabama-LSU game of earlier this month?  Had the Game of the Century ended in such a way, here’s betting the SEC office and perhaps Mike Slive himself would have had to give comment.

* James Franklin and Vandy fans can be upset that the letter of the law wasn’t followed in this case, but they shouldn’t complain too loudly.  In reality, it was the interception that was the difference in the game.  Praying for an inadvertent whistle is simply pleading for a technicality.

We said the same thing when Tennessee fans complained last season that LSU’s T-Bob Hebert had taken his helmet off seconds before the actual end of the Vols’ loss to the Tigers.  Could a flag have been thrown?  Yes (though as former coordinator of SEC officials Rogers Redding told us… that’s a discretionary call).  But did Tennessee deserve to win because a player took his helmet off a couple of seconds early?  Of course not.

Just as Vanderbilt didn’t deserve to win on Saturday because an official mistakenly blew his whistle.

The first involved Vanderbilt’s celebration after beating Ole Miss last September (the school posted the video).  The second involved Mississippi State’s postgame celebration after its Egg Bowl win last November (MSU’s alumni association posted the video).

Other than that, what happens in a locker room stays in a locker room, in our view.  We’ve seen leaked stuff before, but I sure can’t recall posting any of it.

Having been in college locker rooms after victories, I can tell you that what’s said there is a) said for the sake of the players, not the fans and media and b) similar no matter which locker room you’re inside.

After wins, boasting is the order of the day.  After losses, “we beat ourselves” is the mantra.

If a school releases something boastful or weepy, we find that newsworthy because that shows that the school/programs wants the information out there.  When MSU releases video of Dan Mullen saying his team will never lose to Ole Miss again, that is more a story than an exuberant Mullen saying the actual words.

However, when someone sneaks a video — one that the school isn’t pushing — then we’ve in the past backed away, not wanting to invade the private moments between a coach and his team.

Not everyone feels the way we do.  For some sites — that’ve proven time and again they would rather be the story than report the story — anything and everything is fair game.  Ask Tennessee’s Derek Dooley.

Dooley’s locker room was mighty celebratory on Saturday night after his Vols outlasted Vanderbilt 27-21 in overtime.  Someone recorded the celebration with a cell phone camera and the website OutkickTheCoverage.com posted it under the headline: “Derek Dooley Slams Vandy In Post-Game Locker Room Celebration.”

In the video below, if you listen closely, you can hear Dooley tell his team (in between wild cheers) that “The one thing that Tennessee always does is kick the s— out of Vandy.”

And that’s set off a s— storm in Nashville.  Asked about the celebration yesterday, Vandy coach James Franklin was not amused:

“That’s a wound that I’m going to leave open that’s not going to heal.  We’ve leave it open for a year and we’ll discuss it next year…

We’ll talk about it as much as you guys want to talk about it next year.  We’ll watch it as many times as we’ve got to watch it next year.

I look at it as respect.  Some people act like they won the Super Bowl, and they beat a team that the two previous years had won four games total.  Obviously, we are closing the gab and threatening some people and making some people uncomfortable.  We’ll see.  We’ll leave it at that.  We’ll move on.  But we’re have a lot of discussion about this next year when the time is right.”

Dooley was not thrilled that his postgame locker room chat was released to the public.  (Note to coaches: You might want to institute a “no cell phones in the locker room” policy.)

“I’m a little disappointed that a video is out on our locker room celebration.  But that’s kind of the world we live in.  It’s like there’s no sacred place.  I think probably all 120 (FBS) coaches out there in football have a side to them where they loosen up with the team that they don’t do in public.

You take those things for what they are.  It’s a postgame, emotional, have a little fun… and then you close the door on them when you leave.”

Well you can bet Franklin won’t be closing the door on them.  And he has every right to use Dooley’s words as a motivation for his team next year.  Just as Dooley has every right to put a foot in the rump of anyone posting video of UT’s pre- or postgame locker room talks.

That said, Tennessee does deserve a pass on part of their celebration.  The Volunteers sang the following song as noted in The Tennessean:

“We don’t give a damn about the whole school of Vanderbilt, the whole school of Vanderbilt, the whole school of Vanderbilt; we don’t give a damn about the whole school of Vanderbilt… we’re from Tennessee.”

Anyone who’s spent anytime at all around college football knows that that little ditty is a postgame tradition at about half the schools in the country.  As in: “We don’t give a damn about the whole state of Michigan, we’re from O-HI-O.”  Etc, etc.  It’s a staple of many SEC and Big Ten locker rooms and I can say that from personal experience.

But at the end of the play, game officials hit Bray with a 15-yard personal foul for going low on a Vanderbilt player during Barnes’ return.  Asked about that penalty after the game by Jimmy Hyams of WNML-AM/FM in Knoxville (who’s made our site twice today), Bray said:

“Oh, the first guy came and tried to hit me and the second guy came and I was like, ‘Oh, no, I’ll take the penalty,’ and I just took his knee out.”

Is it possible Bray was kidding?  That seemed to be Derek Dooley’s assessment during Tennessee’s media session today.  But the fact that officials saw enough to call a 15-yard personal foul against UT’s quarterback suggests the “just kidding” defense is rather weak.

Bray is just a sophomore.  Barring injury or unexpected demotion, he’ll face the Commodores at least once more during his career.  So it’s likely Vandy’s players will be reminded of the quarterback’s comment and actions next November.

On a related note, officials last offseason used Bray’s throat slash gesture against North Carolina in the 2010 Music City Bowl as an example of the type of celebration that could result in a team’s touchdown coming off the board as part of a tougher taunting penalty.

For a quarterback, Bray certainly seems to have captured the attention of the SEC’s officials.

We weren’t among them.  Was it a juvenile move from a grown man?  Sure.  But did the act deserve the national attention it drew?  Not in our opinion.

Then came Grantham’s dust-up with Vanderbilt coach James Franklin following the Bulldogs’ win last month in Nashville.  As we noted at the time, Franklin “seemed calm and composed while Grantham appeared to go haywire.”

We also pointed out that Grantham had at that point been caught twice “acting like an overheated, 20-year-old player.”  We wrote that he got “some egg on his face.”

And he did, the national media repeatedly showed the clip of him screaming at Franklin.  Grantham later apologized.

We gave Franklin the benefit of the doubt on that occasion.  His reputation had been pretty good to that point.  Grantham was the known hot-head, not Franklin.  And if — as Franklin claimed after the game — a Georgia player had taunted him and his team, we have no problem with him taking it up with the opposing team’s coach.

But now we’re left to wonder what Franklin said to Grantham that got him so riled up.  You see, it’s been reported that Franklin has now had his second run-in with an opposing coach after a football game.

Saturday night, Tennessee defeated Vanderbilt in overtime.  Vol defensive back Eric Gordon picked off a Jordan Rodgers pass and returned it for the game-winning score.  But an official incorrectly blew a whistle and marked Gordon down.  Though no Vandy players seemed to slow down or stop, technically the play should have been dead right there, it should not have been revieweed — inadvertent whistles aren’t reviewable — and Tennessee should have started it’s own offensive possession.

Instead, the officials reversed the call after a review and got the call “right,” in terms of what actually happened, but they were wrong in how they arrived at their decision (as even SEC coordinator of officials Steve Shaw admitted yesterday).

Franklin was livid over the call and he apparently refused to shake the hands of Tennessee quarterbacks coach Darin Hinshaw and offensive line coach Harry Hiestand after the game.  (Photo at left.)

If true, this is now the second time Franklin has gotten into some sort of postgame altercation with an opposing coach.

Making matters worse, Jimmy Hyams of WNML-AM/FM in Knoxville has reported that a witness heard Franklin shout an obscenity toward the Tennessee student section as he left the field.

And tossing in one other nugget at this point, Vanderbilt is also developing a reputation for delivering late clips.  Vanderbilt center Logan Stewart was given a half-game suspension by the SEC for a blindside, knee-first that hit he put on Georgia’s Kwame Geathers.  On Saturday, the Commodores had a 70-yard pass called back when O-lineman Josh Jelesky delivered a similar clip to a Tennessee defender.

After his team’s game with Georgia, Franklin said, “We are gonna compete with class and we are gonna play with class.  And we’re gonna coach ‘em with class.”

Well, as was the case with Grantham, we start to pay more attention when a pattern begins to develop.  So if — and we stress if — Franklin snubbed a pair of UT coaches and cursed Tennessee’s student section on Saturday, then he might want to rethink that part about coaching ‘em with class.

And if his team continues to be penalized for delivering low, cheap shots game after game, he may have to tweak that part about playing with class, too.