Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley hitched up his britches and made a rare public appearance earlier this week. Michael Silence opines:

Certanly, these kinds of comments are not comforting. “I told (UT sports information officials Bud Ford and John Painter) that I hadn’t done anything. Nothing has happened.” Seems to me he ought to let the fans, the board of directors of the program, be the judge of that.

And:

I will say, though, that at the end of the day anything less than the stellar standards set by Pat Summitt and Bruce Pearl will be unacceptable to many fans and members of the media. You’re in the big leagues now, coach. The good ol’ boy closed-door approach won’t cut it.

Our last coach made enough public statements for our next three coaches combined. As a Tennessee football fan, I’m sorta relishing in being able to turn on ESPN without seeing our coach in the headlines because of something stupid he said. As long as he’s going about the business of preparing the team for success on the gridiron, I’m okay with the relative obscurity.

Because he’s a Nick Saban protege, I think we better get used to having a tight-lipped coach. Saban, after all, is notorious for playing it close to the vest, and has made a reputation of not being the most media-friendly coach in the world. Alabama fans love him, though, mostly because he just won a national championship. I would argue that whether Dooley wins over Tennessee fans will depend on the product on the field, not how many public appearances he makes.

WBIR has the video. When is the last time we had a coach who uses the word “dudn’t?”

Tennessee’s football motto for 2010: “All your might.” This follows “It’s Time” from 2009 and “Carry the Fight” from 2008.

As overheard here, the motto should’ve been “Dust yer britches off.” That would’ve been a slam-dunk.

Any self-respecting blogger will have one. So here’s mine:

First, I’m an unabashed Peyton Manning fan. I’m a fan of his ability as one of the very best, if not the best, quarterbacks to ever play the game, and I’m a fan of the class with which he conducts himself on and off the field. Seventy-five percent of his NFL colleagues could stand to learn a thing or two from him. So, obviously, I was disappointed that the Colts lost. I wish I could join the rest of America in being happy that the Saints won their first-ever Super Bowl ring, but…well, I’ll just say, “Congrats Saints fans” and leave it at that.

On to the commercials. There were some good ones and some lame ones this year. All in all, it probably wasn’t quite up to standard. It might make you wonder if advertising budgets are being slashed…but it’s hard to say budgets are cut back when $30 million per 30-second spot is being spent, isn’t it? Dominoes will be the brand most remembered from Super Bowl XLIV. Is it just me or are there fewer and fewer beer commercials these days? The Budweiser frogs introduced a whole new generation to the wonderful art of Super Bowl commercials back in the ’90s and now they’re disappointing us with fewer ad spots. I suppose that, given the ongoing state of the economy, the brewers feel there’s enough demand for their product to negate the need for advertising. Who knows.

Was anyone else disappointed with the Focus on the Family commercial featuring Tim Tebow? Given all the hoopla over this commercial, I expected something juicy, like Tebow saying “abortion is murder” or Dr. James Dobson (Focus on the Family founder) condemning abortion providers. Instead, it was a gentle 30-second spot with Mrs. Tebow talking about her son. It never mentioned abortion or anything close to it. We had to run it back and watch it a second time to make sure we saw it correctly. It’s a sad testimony to the state of affairs in our society when countless ads are aired with subtle sexual connotations and nothing is said, but a single ad with subtle pro-family connotations causes a nationwide outcry.

And, finally, the game.

A couple of things have been true all season long, and they were highlighted tonight: Without Peyton Manning, the Colts aren’t even an AFC championship team, and they might struggle to even make the playoffs. Manning is the single most game-changing player in the league. Tonight, the Saints successfully neutralized him. And that, in turn, changed the game.

More than that, though, what we saw tonight was a team that was severely out-coached. There may have been more difference in coaching between these two teams tonight than in any Super Bowl I can recall watching. The Saints had a perfect game plan. The Colts? Not so much so.

The Colts’ defensive game plan tonight was disastrous. Actually, it was the failure to adjust that was disastrous, since that very game plan has won a lot of games for the Colts this year. When it became obvious that they weren’t going to get pressure on the quarterback by rushing four, some adjustments should have been made. I’m sure I missed one here and there, but without reviewing the video, I can’t recall the Colts throwing a single blitz package at Drew Brees after the first quarter.

Also, something very notable happened between the first and second quarters: The Colts came out on the Saints’ first possession and ran tight coverage. CBS color commentator Phil Simms even commented about how the Saints were expecting soft coverage and didn’t get it. That changed as the game progressed, and I have no idea why. The fact is, the Colts’ defensive game plan tonight made John Chavis look aggressive during his last few years at Tennessee. That isn’t to take anything away from Brees, who played a great game. But it was like shooting fish in a barrel for him. Any NFL quarterback who has three or four seconds to stand in the pocket and soft coverage on his receivers is going to complete 70% of his passes.

I had no problem with the game plan the Colts had entering the game. But some adjustments should have been made. To the casual observer’s eye, those adjustments were never made. Instead, the Colts appeared to stick by their game plan and hope for the Saints to make a major mistake as the game progressed. That never happened, and it wasn’t going to happen on this night. Brees and his receivers were in tune, and token coverage and a token pass rush weren’t going to stop them.

Instead, it was the Colts who made the mistake…and, of course, the chances that they would make the mistake was greatly enhanced by a very aggressive Saints defense that wasn’t afraid to pin their ears back and come after Manning even if it meant giving up a big play here and there. Which goes to show you that the old cliche is true: One team played like they wanted to win; the other played like they were afraid to lose. On any other night, maybe it works for the Colts. But tonight, they never had a chance. Even as they were driving for an apparent game-tying field goal with inside five minutes left, my opinion was that they were already beaten, because they would leave too much time on the clock and there was no way their defense could stop the Saints from getting into field goal range.

On top of that, throw in a very crucial series in the second quarter: The Saints dominated the clock in the second period and that was the turning point of the game. Any time you can go 15 minutes with Peyton Manning touching the ball only six times, you’ve accomplished something big. Even though the Colts regained the lead briefly in the third quarter, it was just never the same. Much was said about the Saints’ decision to go for the touchdown late in the second. But it was a perfect strategy. If they had gotten the field goal, Manning would’ve been given the ball at the 20- or 30-yard-line with two minutes to go. Chances are great that the Saints would’ve been down 17-6 at the half. Instead, the Saints gave the Colts the ball on the two-yard-line and Indianapolis played right into their hands by running the fullback two times on the ensuing series and not going to the air on third and short…giving the Saints a second try at the field goal. (And given the way the Colts’ defense was playing, was there any doubt that Brees was going to get his team into field goal range?)

If the coaching staffs had been reversed tonight, the score would’ve also been reversed.

It was the worst-kept secret in the history of Tennessee football, but former Vol player Chuck Smith is UT’s new defensive line coach.

This rounds out a pretty darned good staff. One that has just as much (or more) NFL experience as Kiffin’s staff. And, quite frankly, this staff may not be too far behind that highly-touted “greatest staff ever assembled.”

A good read:

“Somebody has to show me they can stop 18,” says Pro Bowl linebacker DeMeco Ryans of the Houston Texas, who predicts the Colts will zip past the Saints. “I don’t think it can be done.”

Despite its problems over the past 16 months, the University of Tennessee remains a pretty good place to play football, as evidenced by Derek Dooley’s inaugural recruiting class.

It appears that Dooley, like Lane Kiffin before him, will have a Top 10 recruiting class in his first season in Knoxville.

With less than three weeks to prepare and with only a skeleton staff in place, Dooley managed to haul in a recruiting class that is ranked No. 9 in the nation by Rivals.Com (the Vols were No. 8 most of the day but were surpassed by UCLA late). Other recruiting sites have them ranked lower, but Rivals.Com is the one I buy stock in.

Most of the recruits who signed with Tennessee today were initially recruited by Kiffin and his staff. However, if Kiffin gets credit for this year’s recruiting class, Phillip Fulmer gets credit for last year’s recruiting class. And, there were a couple of recruits who signed Letters of Intent with Tennessee today who wouldn’t have signed with Kiffin (5-star wide receiver Da’Rick Rogers and 4-star lineman James Stone).

The rankings include both good news and bad news. While the Vols are No. 9 nationally, they’re No. 5 in the SEC, behind Florida, Auburn, Alabama and LSU. And in a true case of the rich getting richer, the Gators have the nation’s top-ranked class, overall.

Still, recruiting is a process. The key is that for two consecutive years, Tennessee has recruited talent that can hang with the talent at other SEC schools. And, the Vols filled most of their needs, signing three quarterbacks, four offensive linemen, and one of their best groups of wide receivers ever. The lone spot where UT didn’t do well was defensive tackle, signing just one (John Brown). That made JC Copeland’s defection to LSU especially costly.

Copeland’s surprise decision was the only one of the day that was especially important. Tennessee did lose 4-star linebacker Glen Stanley to USC (a player who was never recruited by Kiffin until after he committed to Tennessee). And former commitment Markeith Ambles (5-star receiver) signed with USC, but that isn’t a bad thing.

College football recruits across the country are signing with the universities and colleges of their choice today, on National Signing Day.

So far, there have been a couple of mild surprises for Tennessee, one good and one bad: JC Copeland, a 4-star defensive lineman, has defected and signed with LSU. Apparently, Lane Kiffin talked him out of signing with Tennessee. (The rhetorical question once again: What did Tennessee ever do to Kiffin, except give him his break in college coaching?) And Da’Rick Rogers, a 5-star wide receiver, has defected from Georgia to sign with Tennessee. It had become apparent by yesterday that this would likely be the case.

Another 5-star wide receiver, Markeith Ambles, who decommitted from Tennessee last month, will sign with Kiffin and USC. Signing with someone other than Tennessee is no surprise, but many figured North Carolina to be his school of choice. Ambles’ absence in Knoxville is probably not a bad thing, all things considered.

Tennessee is now in wait-and-see mode for James Stone, a 4-star offensive lineman from Nashville’s Maplewood High School. He is set to announce his choice at 11:30 a.m.

UPDATE: It appears that Stone will announce at 11:30 that he is all Vol.

It appears that Tennessee has a new defensive coordinator: Boise State’s Justin Wilcox.

While the 32-year-old Wilcox may not bring the expertise to the table that Tennessee enjoyed under Monte Kiffin, he appears to have a lot of potential. Boise State’s defenses have greatly improved while Wilcox was the coordinator there, and he also spent time at Cal, another successful program. He’s a West Coast guy (his playing days were spent at Oregon), which could give Tennessee a recruiting boost on that end of the country.

The son of an NFL hall-of-famer (former 49ers linebacker Dave Wilcox), Justin Wilcox has pedigree. And, if his tenure at Boise State is any indication, he can get the job done. The question is how well he can transition from preparing against WAC offenses to preparing against SEC offenses.

Meanwhile, tomorrow is National Signing Day. It doesn’t appear that there will be many last-minute surprises, and it looks like the Vols are set to stock up with a Top 10 recruiting class. The most notable surprise could be Georgia receiver Da’Rick Rogers, a 5-star recruit who has been committed to the Bulldogs but appears set to sign with Tennessee tomorrow. James Stone, a prized offensive line recruit from Maplewood in Nashville (Scott High fans will remember playing against him in the playoffs), is another name that folks will be watching. He was turned off by the Kiffin regime, but many feel that he’s leaning towards the Vols. Markeith Ambles, another Georgia receiver who had committed to Tennessee before Kiffin left, will probably not sign with anyone tomorrow, and that doesn’t bode well for the Vols if it works out that way. Ambles has since decommitted from Tennessee.

Give Derek Dooley and his staff a lot of credit. Not only did they salvage Tennessee’s class, but it looks like they’ll sign a couple of guys that Lane Kiffin wouldn’t have signed.

If there are no surprises tomorrow, it isn’t for a lack of trying on Kiffin’s part. Despite Kiffin’s promise that he wouldn’t recruit any UT commitments unless they called him first, VolQuest reported earlier that Ed Orgeron has been in contact with UT commitment JC Copeland. Also, there are reports that Kiffin is trying to sway the commitment of Glen Stanley, after showing no interest in Stanley until after Stanley had committed to Tennessee.

It certainly appears that Kiffin is going out of his way to harm this program as much as possible. What a way to show gratitude to the school that gave you your break into college coaching, huh?

The talk around Knoxville the last few days has been all about the weather, but sight shouldn’t be lost of the fact that Tennessee coach Derek Dooley and his skeleton staff are doing an excellent job of reeling in recruits who had balked when Lane Kiffin sauntered out of town, as well as recruits who had never bought into what Kiffin and his staff were selling.

The latest Rivals.Com recruiting rankings, fresh out of the oven, have the Vols ranked as the No. 7 recruiting class in the country.

Which, by the way, is higher than USC.

The roster for Super Bowl Sunday (Feb. 7) is halfway set. Peyton Manning and the Colts are three minutes away from victory against the Jets in the AFC Championship Game.

It’s always nice to see one of Tennessee’s favorite sons doing well for himself.

Can you imagine the media hype for the next two weeks if the Vikings were to upset the Saints in the nightcap from N’Awlins? Peyton Manning and Brett Favre going head-to-head on the world’s biggest stage? Mercy.