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The ordeal was too long and too complicated but in the end, Phillip Fulmer felt justice was served. This time.

The NCAA has cleared Brandon Warren to play football for Tennessee, starting Sept. 1 against UCLA.

The Vols gain a terrific tight end, based on everything we've seen from Warren at Alcoa High School and as a freshman at Florida State in 2006.

But let's get greedy. How about Warren lining up on one side and Brad Cottam on the other?

If Cottam had won his appeal for a sixth year of eligibility last fall, that sixth year would be this one. He'd be teaming up with Warren to give UT one of the more dynamic tight-end tandems imaginable.

Cottam was turned down and has moved on to trying to make the Kansas City Chiefs.

While the circumstances of his appeal were quite different from Warren's, they had a common denominator.

They gave the NCAA an opportunity to do the right thing by a student-athlete, even if it meant bending a rigid rule book that sometimes seems to contain every contingency except common sense.

"You know, that still upsets me very much,'' Fulmer said Tuesday of the Cottam case.

"Brad, to me, was a perfect candidate, not by the rules necessarily, because along the way he did play a game past 20 percent.

"But he is exactly what they talk about as a person and a student. He really needed another year physically because he was just getting healthy.''

Cottam suffered a broken wrist about this time last year, just before his anticipated break-out senior season. When it became apparent his appeal wasn't going to succeed, he played sparingly in UT's final five games.

"People will never know how much we missed him,'' Fulmer said. "All that planning all summer. Chris Brown was the benefactor of some of that but he wasn't a big guy who can run like Brad can.''

The 6-foot-1, 225-pound Warren isn't as imposing as the 6-8, 270-pound Cottam, but his skills appear to be even more potent.

Dare a comparison be made to basketball's Tyler Smith?

Smith, like Warren, was an in-state kid who transferred to UT to be closer to a parent who was seriously ill. Like Warren, he had to appeal to gain immediate eligibility.

The difference was Smith finished his freshman year at Iowa and was released by the school. Warren left Florida State in the spring of his freshman year and was never released, even though he was at neither school and missed the 2007 season.

Fulmer said Tuesday he had never asked FSU coach Bobby Bowden why he was so stubborn in not releasing Warren. Asked if he would handle the situation the same as Bowden, Fulmer only smiled:

"I'm not going there, thanks. Good try, though.''

Anyway, Smith won his hardship appeal on June 23, 2007, and played last winter for the Vols. Man, did he play.

Smith was first-team All-SEC, honorable mention All-America. Without Smith, no way do the Vols win 31 games, achieve a No. 1 ranking or claim the school's first outright SEC title since 1967.

Who knows, Warren may in fact be an even better football player than Smith is a basketball player.

"I think he's going to be a big key for our offense,'' quarterback Jonathan Crompton said. "He's going to be a ballplayer for us.''

He will, but football's a different animal. I expect Warren to elevate the Vols' level play but I don't expect him to elevate them to an SEC title or a No. 1 ranking. He's one of 22 starters. One player makes a bigger impact in basketball.

But what matters now is that Warren in fact does get to make an impact, whatever it might be. It would have been ridiculous to force him to sit another year.

"Even though the process was longer than anybody would have liked,'' said Fulmer, "they did the right thing for this young man.''

This time.

Mike Strange may be reached at 865-342-6276 or strangem@knoxnews.com.

© 2008, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.