Tennessee's wide receivers have a fan in secondary coach Larry Slade, who has developed a keen appreciation for receivers in his 31-year career.

"This receiving corps is as good as any I've ever been around," Slade said.

That's saying something.

Slade, who has been a college coach since 1973, was the secondary coach at the University of Washington for six years, including its national-championship season in 1991. He also coached the Texas A&M secondary for five years before joining UT coach Phillip Fulmer's staff in 1999.

"At Washington, we had a couple of good guys," Slade said. "At Texas A&M, we had one really good guy."

The depth of talent is what impresses him about the current UT group, which already has distinguished itself this preseason. UT's receivers have size, speed and athleticism.

In the last two days of practice, they've made several spectacular catches. Jayson Swain had a one-handed catch Wednesday and Robert Meachem had one the day before.

It's the combination of size and speed that will make Meachem (6-foot-3, 210 pounds) and Chris Hannon (6-4, 195) such a problem for opposing cornerbacks.

"Robert Meachem is big, strong and quick," Slade said. "That's tough to deal with."

Most cornerbacks in the SEC are under 6 feet. Based on preseason depth charts, only two SEC starting cornerbacks — UT's Jason Allen (6-2) and South Carolina's Jonathan Joseph (6-2) — are taller than 6-1.

"You try to recruit bigger cornerbacks now," Slade said. "But those guys are hard to find."

Georgia's best cover corner is Tim Jennings, who is only 5-8. He obviously will be at a huge disadvantage against both Meachem and Hannon.

Hannon isn't just tall. He has long arms and was able to dunk a basketball by the time he was 13 years old. Moreover, he ran a 10.5-second 100 meters in high school and has been clocked at 4.31 seconds in the 40 at UT.

He's just now learning how to exploit his size advantage against smaller defensive backs.

"Coach (Pat) Washington has taught me to attack the ball," Hannon said. "I used to just wait for the ball to come to me."