Phillip Fulmer

It was never like this at the Citrus Bowl. Thrust into a major bowl game for the first time in ages, Tennessee is sweating a little under the bright lights, resulting in Coach Phillip Fulmer issuing a three-day moratorium on the media asking questions about Peyton Manning's status and the Volunteer publicity staff distributing daily "practice report" notes that read more like with-us-or-against-us propaganda pamphlets.

Tennessee Coach Johnny Majors was released from the university medical center in Knoxville, Tenn., seven days after undergoing quintuple heart bypass surgery. Majors had the operation Aug. 25 after a follow-up examination to an angioplasty procedure in May found persistent arterial blockage. Tennessee opens Saturday at home against Southwestern Louisiana. Assistant head coach Phillip Fulmer is in charge until Majors returns.

Tennessee Coach Phillip Fulmer brushed it aside, but Northwestern Coach Gary Barnett wasn't happy to learn that an Orlando TV station had a tape of Northwestern linebacker Pat Fitzgerald saying the Wildcats had put a bounty on Tennessee quarterback Peyton Manning. "If he did, he probably said it in jest," Barnett said. "If he did say it [and meant it] maybe I have to have a talk with him."

Florida, hampered all season by injuries to its defense, lost two key players when defensive end Tim Beauchamp and cornerback Dock Pollard were suspended for the Orange Bowl. Coach Steve Spurrier said the players were ruled out of Saturday's game against Syracuse for breaking school rules but did not elaborate. . . . Tennessee Coach Phillip Fulmer will sign a new contract sometime before Monday's Fiesta Bowl national championship game against Florida State, according to a published report.

If the Citrus Bowl has the fifth-biggest payout, doesn't it stand to reason it should get its congratulatory call from the fifth ranking member of the Clinton Administration? Perhaps, but after Tennessee's 20-14 victory over Ohio State, Volunteer Coach Phillip Fulmer got a call from the No. 2 man, Vice President Al Gore, who is a Tennessee native. "That was great," Fulmer said. "I appreciated that very much. . . . He just congratulated us. He said, 'You've made the state of Tennessee very proud.'

Tennessee (7-4) has spent three months trying to prove it was not as bad as it looked in a 1-3 start. Coach Phillip Fulmer said he hopes to convince his players that tonight's game at Gainesville, Fla., is the last chance to take one more step in the right direction. "We finished the season strong. To do anything less here at the end would be somewhat of a disappointment," Fulmer said. Virginia Tech finished 8-3 and was second in the Big East behind Miami.

While Phillip Fulmer entered the game as the winningest active coach by percentage--66-11, .857--he was only 4-2 in bowl games. Did this vindicate him? "That may be the way some people view things, but I think we could have had a shot at couple of more national titles if it hadn't been for one game a year [the annual losses to Florida]," Fulmer said.

USC's Matt Grootegoed, UCLA's Spencer Havner and San Diego State's Kirk Morrison were selected as semifinalists for the Butkus Award, given to the nation's top linebacker. There are 12 semifinalists instead of the usual 10 because of a 10th-place tie in the selection committee voting. Three finalists will be named Nov. 11. The winner will be announced Dec. 10.

Florida Coach Steve Spurrier, saying he will "keep my big mouth shut," apologized to Tennessee Coach Phillip Fulmer for comments he made Monday at the Jacksonville Quarterback Club. Spurrier's remarks were about Fulmer knocking his own team's chances before the Gators' 31-0 victory over Tennessee Saturday. Spurrier pointed out that Tennessee had the top-ranked recruiting class in the nation last year and had seven NFL first-round draft picks in the last four years, compared to one for Florida.