Fulmer worries about Ainge's pinky
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer knows the margin between victory and defeat can be small, maybe as small as his quarterback's little finger.
Injury-prone senior quarterback Erik Ainge jammed the pinky on his throwing hand taking snaps on Monday, Fulmer revealed during his gameweek news conference Tuesday.
How this might affect Erik Ainge when the 15th-ranked Volunteers open the season Saturday at No. 12 California is unclear.
Erik Ainge downplayed the injury. "I am ready to play," the quarterback insisted.
"Erik is obviously the leader of our offense and the football team," Fulmer said. "He has done exceptionally well."
As a junior, Erik Ainge set a single season record for pass completions, connecting on 233 of 348 throws or 67 percent. He also threw 19 touchdown passes, raising his career total to 41 -- second on the all-time Vol list behind Peyton Manning's 89 TD toss and Casey Clausen's 75.
"We will just have to see how sore his finger is," Fulmer said of Erik Ainge, who sat out spring practice with an injured knee but has been playing hard this preseason. "We are going to be careful with that, to make sure he is ready to go Saturday."
"I will be all right," Erik Ainge said, comparing the injury to catching a chest pass in basketball in some "weird" way. "It is just one of those things."
Erik Ainge said he will limit himself in practice. "We will figure it out. We will do what we need to do and be ready to go."
Meantime, Fulmer said, it will mean more practice reps for backups Jonathan Crompton, a sophomore, and Nick Stephens, a freshman.
The Vols have been putting in time on a no-huddle offense since the spring.
"We are certainly capable of doing that. We worked on it very diligently. I think that we can manage that. We need to test it and find out" how effective it will be, Fulmer said.
The Cal game might be a good opportunity, he said. "I've talked to some coaches around the Pac-10 and they said that stadium can be very loud, and I understand they have handed out about 50,000 megaphones," Fulmer said.
Asked if the Vols will need Erik Ainge to run it, Fulmer said, "No, no."
Erik Ainge had a field day against Cal last year in Knoxville, leading the Vols to a 35-18 victory with four TD strikes. But that was with three receivers now gone, including NFL first-rounder Robert Meacham.
Receivers are just one of the areas at "Wide Receiver U" that Fulmer is hoping to fill or improve. Juniors Lucas Taylor and Josh Briscoe and sophomore Austin Rogers all are expected to be solid receivers, but assistant coach Trooper Taylor says a go-to guy has yet to emerge.
"We have worked the guys hard and we expect to be improved in the areas that we needed to improve in," Fulmer said of the team.
After holding Cal to 63 yards on the ground last year, the Vols had trouble stopping the run as the season wore on, in part because of injuries. Offensively, the Vols will be relying on tailback Arian Foster.
As Fulmer begins his 16th season as head of the Vols, he said he likes to "look at every year as a new start for us." He talks about the Vols building momentum from last year's 9-4 season, a rebound from 5-6 in 2005, without mentioning their last outing -- a 20-10 loss to Penn State in the Outback Bowl.
But he knows there are things you can't control or foresee.
"Depth as we go through the season is always an issue," Fulmer said. "In this league (the Southeastern Conference) it gets down to a player or two making a play and an injury somewhere. It is that close with everybody that you play."
Maybe as close as a little finger.
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