About this time last year, Tennessee football fans were more concerned with the weather than their opening-season opponent. UV rays were considered a greater threat than UAB.

A typical radio talk-show debate went something like this:

One caller: UT shouldn’t have moved the starting time to accommodate television. It will be too hot. All UT thinks about is money. It doesn’t care about the well-being of its fans.

Another caller: Man, it’s gonna be hot.

Another: Man, it’s gonna be hot.

And finally: If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the stadium.

Things worked out OK for UT. The Vols won the game, and the large majority of their fans returned home without having to stop off at the emergency room.

Never mind how hot this summer has been. No one is talking about the weather for the season opener.

The kickoff time has something to do with that. The UT-Cal game won’t start until 5:30.

A 5-6 season also has something to do with it. Last season, most UT fans were so sure they had a championship team, weather topped their worry list. Now, they’re concerned about quarterback, receivers, offensive linemen and coaching.

But I’m still thinking about the weather. And I’m wondering why UT didn’t think more about it.

If I were calling the shots, UT-Cal would have been scheduled for noon. And I wouldn’t have cared if it were on TV or not.

Would it have been hard on the fans? See fourth paragraph.

Forget the fans. Think about your opponent.

The opponent isn’t a middle-of-the-road team in Conference USA. It’s nationally ranked Cal, which is expected to challenge Southern Cal for the Pac-10 championship.

It’s too early to give a position-by-position breakdown on the game. It’s not too early to cite UT’s three biggest advantages — heat, humidity and time zone.

Between now and kickoff, Cal will practice in 70-degree temperature, more often than 90-degree weather. If the temperature drops into the 70s in East Tennessee this month, some Vols might opt for long sleeves and gloves.

I’ve been checking the late-afternoon humidity in Berkeley. It has been as low 34 percent.

I don’t have to check it in Knoxville. I can feel it. And it hasn’t been 34 percent.

My experience with humidity goes back to my childhood in Louisiana, where humidity hangs in the air like moss on trees. Parents introduce their children to it as though it’s a family friend or distant relative.

"Let’s go outside for a few minutes," a parent will tell an unsuspecting child on a brutally hot day in late July.

Back inside five minutes later, the parent points at the soaking-wet shirt of the small child, who might be crying. "That’s called humidity," the parent says. "Get used to it."

I was further educated to the impact of heat and humidity while covering an early September afternoon football game between Notre Dame and Ole Miss many years ago. The Irish were picked to win the national championship; the Rebels were headed for a losing season.

But in the second-half, a pedestrian Ole Miss team suddenly sprouted wings, and a superior Notre Dame team wilted before disbelieving eyes. The upset had more to do with heat and humidity than offense or defense.

None of this is lost on Cal coach Jeff Tedford, who was asked at a preseason press conference how he planned to prepare his team for southern humidity.

"Yes, we will practice off-site; we’ll wet the field down," he said. "We’re going to wet the field and try to create some humidity."

I don’t know exactly what he means by "off-site." But if I were coaching Cal, I’d be busing the team to Sacramento for practice.

It has been as hot as 116 degrees in Sacramento this summer, and it’s more humid than Berkeley. I just read an Internet post from a Las Vegas resident, who moved from Sacramento "to escape the humidity."

Heat and humidity will work in UT’s favor even though the game won’t start until 5:30. But imagine how big the advantages would have been with a noon (9 a.m. PDT) kickoff. Cal would have sleep-walked through the first half and been physically drained in the second.

And not even the fans on IVs would have complained about the heat.

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