So Tennessee controls its own football destiny again. Fine, but let me ask you this?

In a 2007 season when up is down, when day is night, when 6 is 9, who thinks the wackiness is over?

Who honestly believes that after a startling September and an eye-opening October that we're in for a normal November?

I'm not buying it. The only thing I'm willing to wager my lunch money on in November is a homecoming win for the Vols over Louisiana-Lafayette. After that, it's back to the roulette wheel.

Tennessee has arrived at a 3-2 SEC record to begin the final month of a season that's been as unpredictable in Ann Arbor, Gainesville and South Central LA as it has been in Knoxville.

Check that. Arrived at doesn't do Tennessee's journey justice.

Try careened or lurched or zigzagged.

I doubt a team with as dramatic a split personality as this one has ever said on Nov. 1 it controlled its own destiny in the SEC Eastern Division race.

Tennessee's personality schism was formerly confined to a week-to-week basis. Would the team that got clobbered at Florida show up, or the one that clobbered Georgia?

The team tough enough to win at Mississippi State (that one looks even better after the Bulldogs whipped Kentucky) or the one that wimped out at Alabama?

Now it's a half-to-half proposition.

"We've got to hang on some way,'' head coach Phillip Fulmer said Saturday night after a 27-24 overtime win over South Carolina. "We've got to get to Atlanta because we control our destiny right now, 100 percent.''

Hang on for dear life is the best advice I can give after watching the Vols build a 21-0 lead over the 15th-ranked Gamecocks and then blow it - and then redeem themselves in overtime.

There's a lot of football to be played before anybody gets to Atlanta for the SEC championship game on Dec. 1.

And, no doubt, several more surprising scores will crawl across the bottom of your TV screen.

Tennessee still has SEC games against Arkansas, Vanderbilt - both in Neyland Stadium - and a visit to Kentucky. Win all three and Peachtree Street will be orange on the first day of December.

Win all three. Right.

Hard to sell that one around here.

In all likelihood the Vols have another loss in them. At least one.

But here's the crazy thing: Tennessee could lose again and still get to Atlanta.

In a season in which it's impossible to distinguish parity from mediocrity, 11 of 12 SEC teams - all but Ole Miss - are still mathematically in the title hunt.

So somebody could (and probably will) go 5-3 and win the East via the tiebreaker.

Georgia is 4-2 but the Bulldogs could easily lose to Auburn or Kentucky.

Florida is 3-3 and could lose to South Carolina in Columbia on Nov. 10.

That's no more far-fetched than Arian Foster flinging a fumble down field and having Jacques McClendon fall on it for a 17-yard gain to set up a game-tying 48-yard field goal.

The SEC tie-breaking format can get complicated. Bottom line, if UT finishes 5-3, it needs a fourth loss by Florida.

If Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina all finish 5-3, my math, though never a strong suit, indicates the Vols have the tie-breaker edge.

If (or when) they lose again, it would be preferable to lose to Arkansas of the West, not East-mates Vandy or Kentucky.

But if (or when) they lose again, don't assume the race is over until the last tick is off the last clock.

If nothing else this season we've learned that controlling one's destiny is slippery business. This condition, furthermore, is not unique to Tennessee.

In the absence of a great team, the resilient one will carry the day.

Mike Strange may be reached at 865-342-6276 or strange2@knews.com.

© 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.