vols ready for championship game

After all of the ups and downs from the past roller-coaster of a football season, the Tennessee Volunteers find themselves exactly where they set out to be all along—playing for an SEC Championship in Atlanta on the first Saturday of December.

Vols’ head coach Phillip Fulmer said his team won’t take anything for granted after all it’s been through to get to this point.

“Needless to say, we are very excited about the opportunity to represent the Southeastern Conference Eastern Division in the championship game,” Fulmer said. ”I believe that it is one of the greatest settings in all of college football.

“I’ve been fortunate to go a lot of places and play in a lot of stadiums in a lot of big games and, to me, the Southeastern Conference has created an environment there that is almost second to none.”

Fulmer is quick to point out that despite his team’s three losses, the Vols have a lot left to accomplish and very much deserve to be playing in Atlanta on Saturday.
“It has been an interesting year from our standpoint,” Fulmer commented. “Our team has continued to fight all year long to get to this point. The team and the staff deserve great credit for the character and the blue-collar attitude they have had to get it done.

“Our team is talented enough to be in the championship game, but also I think the characteristic of being great workers and great fighters has been the best trait we’ve had as a football team,” Fulmer continued.

LSU, the winner’s of the SEC Western Division and the Vols’ opponent at the Georgia Dome Saturday, has spent most of the season ranked amongst the elite teams in college football. Fulmer said he believes the Tigers are every bit as good as advertised but his team has no reason to be intimidated.
“When we play solid, good, fundamental football, we are a good football team,” Fulmer sated. “Certainly, against LSU we will have to do that. We do have our shortcomings on occasions—one of those being lapses of a play—and we do understand that against LSU we cannot afford any of that along the way.
“When you look at LSU—and we have seen them all year long on film because of common opponents—they are a very talented football team,” Fulmer added.

In the aftermath of their heart-stopping, four-overtime win over Kentucky last Saturday to clinch the Eastern Division title for the second time in four years, Fulmer don’t think his Vols will have a hangover Saturday against LSU even after such a taxing win over Kentucky.
“From our standpoint, I thought we bounced back well (at practice) on Sunday night,” he said. “We didn’t do a lot because of the time we spent on the field versus Kentucky. The energy and the enthusiasm were there, though, which is what I was looking for. I want to make it clear that our team understands the challenges and the opportunity it has. They have played the role of the underdog during the season pretty well, so we’ll see what happens.”