Peyton Manning to be at opener for locker room dedication

Peyton Manning will be on hand Saturday for the start of the Lane Kiffin Era.

Manning will attend the dedication of the Peyton Manning Locker Room at Neyland Stadium.

The ceremony is at 9:30 a.m., for media with credentials.

Manning, who started at UT from 1994-97, donated $1 million toward stadium renovations in 2006. He will start his 12th season with the Indianapolis Colts on Sept. 13.

Scouting Report: Kiffin described Western Kentucky as extremely multiple on offense, defense and special teams.

The Hilltoppers have two new coordinators. Mike Dietzel returns to the defensive coordinator role he held from 2004-05. This is his seventh year at WKU.

Walt Wells, the offensive line coach the past six years, takes over as offensive coordinator.

Three other coaches are new this year: Bob Cole, quarterbacks; Kurt Barber, outside linebackers; Scott Booker, secondary.

“At the end of the day,’’ Kiffin said, “it will be about us. We don’t really know what they’re going to do.’’

Kiffin said he believed the Hilltopper offense had “a lot of Florida in it.’’

Injury Report: Receivers Denarius Moore and Gerald Jones won’t play. Nor will center Josh McNeil.

Defensive ends Gerald Williams and Ben Martin were questionable on Thursday. Media was not allowed to attend Friday’s walk-through at the Neyland-Thompson Complex.

Just a Peek: Kiffin said he occasionally looks in on the defensive game plan formulated by his father, Monte Kiffin.

“It’s not to give him ideas where maybe I’d look at it different before,’’ Lane Kiffin said. “We have a lot of trust. I think we have the best defensive staff in the country.’’

Move the Chains: Kiffin said he believed the most important statistic was turnover margin. Second was first downs.

“Having a lot of first downs shows me that you’re doing a lot of things right,’’ he said.

Legends: Defensive back Andre Lott (1998-2001) and linebacker Scott Galyon (1992-95) will be Tennessees’s Legends of the Game today. Look for Johnny Majors next week against UCLA.

Opening Day: The Vols should get off on the right foot for the first time since 2006. Opening losses to California in 2007 and UCLA in 2008 snapped a streak of 12 consecutive opening-day wins from 1995-2006.

Big Plays: UT is looking for play-makers. Last year, the Vols had only 34 offensive plays of longer than 20 yards — an average of fewer than three per game. Eleven of the 34 were compiled by the two injured receivers, Jones and Moore.

Bounce-Back Streak: Tennessee has the nation’s longest active streak of avoiding consecutive losing seasons: 93 years.

That dates to 1910 (3-5-1) and 1911 (3-4-2), which followed a 1-6-2 record in 1909.

Watching at Home: Dave Neal calls the play-by-play for the SEC Network, with Andre Ware as his analyst and Cara Capuano roaming the sidelines.

Ware won the Heisman Trophy in 1989 at Houston. Capuano is a 1995 graduate of UC-San Diego.

Dave Hooker contributed to this notebook.

© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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