Tennessee's offense could be Watson Brown's fantasy team.

He has been a college head coach for 20 years and has even more experience running an offense. But he has never had an offense as talented and versatile as the one his UAB Blazers will have to deal with Saturday afternoon at Neyland Stadium.

How could he have?

You don't attract UT's kind of talent at places like Austin Peay, Cincinnati, Vanderbilt and Rice - where Brown has served as a head coach. At places like that, you learn to do more with less.

His 1987 Vanderbilt team scored 36 points on UT at Neyland Stadium. But UT scored 38.

Recruiting the best offensive players to second- and third-tier college programs is tough enough. Recruiting the best defensive players is even tougher.

The Blazers scored 55 points last season against Tulane and lost by four. They scored 40 at Hawaii and lost by 19.

So you can imagine what Brown thinks when he sees a team as complete as UT's, particularly on offense.

"When you've got all the tools, it's a lot more fun," he said. "It's a lot more fun to call plays when you're strong at wideout, when you have a great running back, when you're experienced at quarterback and you have a great offensive line.

The dream team that Brown sees on tape is the one UT offensive coordinator Randy Sanders sees every day. He never has had more weapons at his command.

Or, as starting quarterback Erik Ainge put it Tuesday, "We could go four-wide and average 300 yards passing a game or we could line up with two tight ends and rush for 200 or 250 yards per game."

The Vols were more limited last year: first, by experience; then, by injuries. But when head coach Phillip Fulmer reviewed the season, he concluded that no assistant coach in the country did a better job than Sanders, who prepared two freshman quarterbacks - Ainge and Brent Schaeffer - to start. And when they went down with injuries, the Vols won three of four games and averaged 35.5 points with third-stringer Rick Clausen at quarterback.

Sanders' challenge will be different this season. Rather than coach and coax inexperienced quarterbacks through a daunting schedule, his challenge will be to make the most of a bountiful offense that has potential to soar past the 400-point mark.

The Vols scored more than 400 points five times in six years (1993-1998) when David Cutcliffe was the offensive coordinator. In Sanders' first six seasons as offensive coordinator, the Vols hit 400 on the nose in 2001 but failed to score more than 369 points in each of the other five years.

Sanders now has comparable talent to what Cutcliffe had in the mid-to-late 1990s. While he distinguished himself as a quarterbacks coach last season, this could be his breakout year as an offensive coordinator.

Fulmer is relentless about covering all his bases in preparing for a game and a season. He admits to driving his assistants batty with all the what-ifs he might conjure up.

But let's take a different approach. What if everything goes right?

What if Ainge makes the same progress between his first and second years that Peyton Manning did; tailback Gerald Riggs stays healthy and a young running back develops as well; the tendons and ligaments on the biggest offensive line in UT history don't give way; and one or two receivers emerge from a group that is renowned for its depth rather than star power?

Then you might have an offense along the lines of the 1993 team, which scored under 28 points only once and more than 41 seven times in a 484-point, record-setting season.

Sanders doesn't discuss his offense in terms of points or yards. He talks about eliminating turnovers and reducing penalties, about "keeping the game manageable" and doing whatever it takes to win.

Brown has a one-word answer for what it takes.

"Balance," he said. "That's exactly what Tennessee has."

Sports editor John Adams may be reached at 865-342-6284 or adamsj@knews.com.