The hard lesson learned by the Tennessee Volunteers two years ago on a cold

Saturday in Memphis is still remarkably fresh in the minds of the players

and coaches who suffered through it.

Although they say they’re tired of hearing about the loss which ended their

hopes for a possible national title, the Vols learned you cannot afford to

take any team for granted.

That is why Al Wilson and Raynoch Thompson, both nursing nagging injuries,

will start against Alabama-Birmigham on Saturday at Neyland Stadium (4

p.m., pay-per-view).

That is why the Vols refuse to take 2-6 UAB lightly, even though the

Blazers are the losers of four straight and their head coach openly admits

they have almost no chance of pulling an upset against Tennessee.

“We’ve talked to our team about not having a fan’s mentality,” UT head

coach Phillip Fulmer said. “We’ve got to go play our best for four weeks

and, hopefully, a championship game.

“That starts with UAB.”

Wilson, who has been playing with a painful shoulder injury picked up in

the Houston game, and Thompson, who experienced back spasms in the win over

South Carolina, will both be on the field against UAB.

Defensive coordinator John Chavis says the Vols can’t go into Saturday’s

non-conference game with the attitude that all they have to do is show

up.

“Both (Wilson and Thompson) will start the game,” Chavis said. “We can’t

take anything for granted. This offense gives you a lot of problems and

we’ve got to be ready to play at our best.

“You’ve got to do that every week. It’s a fact and we know it.”

On the offensive side, quarterback Tee Martin, when asked if he’d mind

coming out of the game at halftime, would have no part of such talk.

“I’m not even going to disrespect UAB like that,” Martin said. “I can’t

even say I expect to play just one half against them because thinking like

that can get us upset.

“I’m not going in thinking about how long I’m going to play or how many

points we’re going to score. I’m just treating them like it’s a Florida

game, that kind of approach.”

With the Bowl Championship Series ranking Tennessee No. 2, the Vols know,

especially after what happened to UCLA last week, that they must win

impressively in order to maintain that ranking.

However, that is not to say they are consumed by the BCS. Most players and

coaches claim they aren’t even thinking about the rankings.

Against UAB, though, everybody expects Tennessee to win impressively and by

a wide margin. That is unfortunate, Fulmer says.

“That’s the world that has been created for us as coaches,” he said.

In other words, running up scores, to a certain extent, has been encouraged

by the pollsters, who reward teams for big wins and penalize them for

narrow victories, a la UCLA.

“Look at UCLA,” Fulmer said. “We’ve got to assume we’ve got to play and

play impressively.

“It doesn’t matter what I think about that, actually, but yeah, I think

it’s a bad state of affairs.”