Topical thoughts and random ruminations sung to the beat of many different drummers.

"It's been a long, long road. Since I packed up and left on my own." -- Jefferson Starship

This week Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer let the world know that he's taken note of the NFL's influence on college football. He said that when it comes time to pick the Vols' 2006 offensive coordinator he will take a look at coaches with NFL experience.

Fans wanting to see massive changes in the program were left cheering.

But quietly, a more important story was trickling out to the North. Kentucky's beleaguered coach Rich Brooks was officially given another year by Wildcats athletic director Mitch Barnhart on Tuesday.

And David Cutcliffe's best chance for a return to the Head Coaching Society probably went out the window with that decision.

That's not fair to a man who won more games at Ole Miss than any coach since Johnny Vaught (and they named the stadium after Vaught), but it's the sad truth when it comes to Cutcliffe.

Which means that the chance of him playing a return engagement in Knoxville just went up. Way up.

Forget the talk of NFL coordinators. UT can't pay what those guys would want, and even if they could, defensive coordinator John Chavis would be in line for a big bump just to even things out. Plus, Cutcliffe is a proven commodity when it comes to UT's system.

Expect Cutcliffe to find his way back to the Neyland Stadium press box next year.

"No flags of truce, no cries of pity. The siege guns had been pounding all through the night." -- Sting

It was announced this week that Tennessee's football practices will remain closed to the media for the rest of 2005. Until the Randy Sanders resignation, the media could at least watch UT go through calisthenics.

But the Sanders shift gave Fulmer the opportunity to put the Vols into full "lockdown." And don't go expecting any kind of glasnost next year, either. The days of in-depth practice reports appear to be over.

Former Vols (who can still attend practice) talk of sloppy drills and a lack of discipline. Perhaps putting up an iron curtain will allow the coaching staff to clean up those problems. Perhaps it's good not to have the media's prying eyes watching over everything.

Or maybe, just maybe, the media's presence could help to hold players accountable during practice sessions. And it could help to temper over-the-top fan expectations (rather than adding to them).

We'll never know now that the Volunteer Act of 2005 has been passed.

"It's been a long, long time coming, but I know a change gonna come. Oh, yes it will." -- Sam Cooke

This week I had an interesting conversation with a man who coaches executives at numerous top companies throughout North America. One of his roles as a consultant is teaching managers how to deal with change.

And as it turns out, many top executives hate change. Doesn't everyone?

CEOs have had success. That's how they became CEOs in the first place. So even when they realize that productivity is slipping and that change is probably a necessity, they still resist it. They don't want to give up what brought them their initial success.

Instead, under intense pressure, they often insulate themselves from the outside world and then revert back to what they know. To the things that have worked in the past. "We don't need a complete paradigm shift. We just need to get back to the old ways of doing things."

Unfortunately, this kind of change usually doesn't bring about great results.

It's dynamic adjustments that tend to put companies back on top in the business world. Not reverting to past formulas.

Sound like any CEOs you know?