After a wildly successful non-conference schedule, the Vols start league play this weekend at Auburn and at Georgia. (And yes, you read that right! Now that we’re starting SEC coverage, it’s time to end my mild form of civil disobedience and get serious!)

• The SEC season actually starts tonight. Mississippi State heads to Alabama on the SEC Network, and Arkansas visits LSU on ESPNU.
• UT is 18-19 since 1978 vs their first conference opponent of the year. Head coach Rob Patrick’s teams are 9-9, having lost the last three.
• Tennessee is 29-16-1 all-time vs Auburn. The team is 6-4 in their last ten meetings. The Vols have only lost five matches to Auburn in the rally-scoring era, but the Tigers currently hold a three match winning streak in the series. The last time Auburn won four in a row over UT was 1995-1998.
• Tennessee is 42-27 all-time vs Georgia. The team is 6-4 in their last ten meetings. The Vols have lost eight matches to Georgia in the rally-scoring era, but the Bulldogs currently hold a three match winning streak in the series. The last time Georgia won four in a row over UT was 1994-1995.
• Vol senior Megan Hatcher is the only player on the roster who was on the team the last time Tennessee beat Auburn or Georgia.
• This weekend will see an A5 reunion of sorts, with alumnae of the volleyball club on all three rosters: two for Auburn, four for Georgia, and Claudia Coco for Tennessee.
• Auburn’s Breanna Barksdale has played Tennessee as part of two schools: AU and Cincinnati.
• Both head coaches meeting Tennessee this weekend have has faced off against the Vols at all of their collegiate coaching jobs.
• Georgia head coach Lizzy Stemke is 3-3 with the Bulldogs, was an assistant coach of the #1 Nebraska team that defeated UT in front of the second largest crowd to watch a Tennessee volleyball team play in 2007, and was an assistant coach with North Carolina when the Vols swept her team at a tournament in Los Angeles in 2006.
• Auburn head coach Rick Nold is 3-3 with the Tigers, was the head coach at Jacksonville State who were swept by UT in 2005 when they made the school’s first ever NCAA Tournament appearance here in Knoxville, and defeated the Vols in five in 2001 as an assistant at Louisville (one of only two matches in the rally-scoring era I don’t have stats for).
• Several of the opposing assistants have coached against the orange and white with other teams too. Auburn’s Eysha Ambler was at Pitt in 2010, Auburn’s Chuck Crawford (a Miami OH alum like UT coach Rob Patrick) was at Georgia Tech in 2013, and Georgia’s Josh Lauer was previously at Alabama.
• Stemke’s brother Rob Fitzgerald was a Tennessee baseball player from 2002-2005. During his senior year he hit .332, was named to the Academic All-District Team, and helped UT to a berth in the College World Series and a final #8 ranking.