Tennessee is no stranger to prime-time football television broadcasts. Monday Night Football, however, represents a new dimension.

The Vols are combining the two and will make their Monday debut in their coming season.

Following lengthy negotiations between no less than five schools and ESPN, Tennessee has a new opening date and opponent -- one already on its schedule -- for its upcoming 2008 football season, VolQuest.com has confirmed. Working with several schools to line up a premier matchup, ESPN will televise Tennessee's visit to UCLA and move the game into its prime-time, Monday Night Football slot on Labor Day. The deal will be formally announced this afternoon. Under this new arrangement, the game will be played Sept. 1, five days before UT was scheduled to visit Los Angeles and 48 hours after it was to open the 16th full season of the Phillip Fulmer era against UAB. ESPN's Monday NFL games typically kick off at 8:30 p.m. EST.

Multiple sources confirmed the negotiations to VolQuest over the last week. The official announcement will come this afternoon now that ESPN has secured the deal with all of the five schools directly impacted by the scrambled schedules.

The scheduling modification has resulted in an rippling effect on several teams' schedules, though the deal apparently fell neatly into place once all the parties were brought to the negotiating table. The switch means Tennessee will play UAB -- its original season-opening foe -- Sept. 13 in Knoxville. The Vols will make Sept. 6 the first of their two open dates, having two extra days to prepare for their opener and then not having to face a short week after a 2,000-mile flight home from L.A. The remainder of their schedule will not be changed.

UCLA, which like UT was eager for the opportunity to be the lone college football game on national television in a primetime slot, will move its opening day foe -- Fresno State -- to Sept. 27, a common open date for both teams.

UAB also had to finesse its schedule. The Blazers, under former Georgia offensive coordinator and second-year coach Neil Callaway, were scheduled to host Alabama State on Sept. 13. It now appears as though that game will be pushed back one week to Sept. 20, when both teams already had scheduled open dates.

The Tennessee-UCLA matchup boasts several compelling storylines aside from the two tradition-rich programs' on-the-field successes.

The contest not only would mark the debut of four new Vols assistant coaches -- most notably offensive coordinator Dave Clawson -- but also could be a showcase event for first-year UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel. A former head coach at Colorado and Washington, Neuheisel has made it clear he wants his Bruins to compete with rival Southern Cal -- on the field, in the Pac-10 conference, on the recruiting trail and for increased attention in Los Angeles.

Tennessee's remaining schedule beginning with the annual showdown against Florida will stay intact. The Vols host the Gators Sept. 20, a game expected to be televised by CBS, and visit Auburn a week later to close out their opening month. They play every Saturday in October and get their second open date Nov. 15 -- after homecoming against Wyoming and before their biannual trip to Vanderbilt.

This isn't the first time UT has worked with ESPN to change its opening game. In 2004, the Vols played their first-ever Sunday night football game when they opened the season against UNLV on ESPN. That game marked the successful debuts of freshman quarterbacks Erik Ainge and Brent Schaeffer, who steered the Vols' 42-17 win.

John Brice
volquest.com