Youth movement

The Vols rolled the dice way back in August when they decided to hitch their offense to a couple of freshman quarterbacks. The Aggies had to lose big before gambling big on young defensive players.

Each team hit a $3 million jackpot. That's the per-team payout in this morning's Cotton Bowl.

There's more at stake in today's 69th Cotton Bowl, which kicks off at 11.

Tennessee (9-3) still has a shot at finishing in the top 10, and Texas A&M (7-4) hopes to enhance its national image with a victory over one of college football's established powers. With plenty of starters returning next season, both teams have an opportunity to affect their preseason rankings in 2005.

Today's opportunity can be traced to decisions made about four months ago.

UT's 2004 success is rooted in a decision last August when coach Phillip Fulmer and offensive coordinator Randy Sanders elected to entrust their offense to freshman quarterbacks Erik Ainge and Brent Schaeffer, who led the Vols to a 7-1 start before they were injured.

Rick Clausen, a third-string quarterback until November, finished what the freshmen started and will make his fourth consecutive start this morning.

"It was a tough decision (to start the freshmen)," Sanders said. "It was a little bit rolling the dice.

"But I felt like it was a safe gamble to give all the reps we could to them and assume they would be ready to play.

"If they had not been ready to play, we probably wouldn't be in the Cotton Bowl, and somebody else would be getting ready to call plays next year."

Instead, Sanders is getting more credit than ever after winning nine games with three different starting quarterbacks.

The Aggies needed a little prodding before investing more heavily in youth. Utah convinced them.

The Utes scored 27 points in the first half and accumulated 582 yards in a 41-21 victory. After that ouch of an opener, Texas A&M coach Dennis Franchione and defensive coordinator Carl Torbush took a hard, second look at their defense.

Nine days later, they revamped their defense and beat Wyoming 31-0.

"We did not play well in the Utah game," Franchione said. "We had to come back and reassess and reevaluate."

The reassessment and re-evaluation favored the younger players, who had closed the gap between the more experienced players ahead of them in preseason.

Freshman defensive end Jason Jack, redshirt freshman cornerback Japhus Brown and former junior college linebacker Remuel Greene made their first college starts against Wyoming. Two games later, former junior college linebacker Lee Foliaki joined them in the starting lineup.

"A key to our entire season has been getting those young guys ready to play," Franchione said.