We’re finally here! The first serves of the season will soon be on their way. Friday is the big opening day across the country, but Tennessee won’t kick things off until Saturday when the team will take on Tennessee Tech at noon and Western Kentucky at 7pm.

Here are some interesting tidbits to get you ready for opening day!

While it is obviously too early for it to mean much, the pollsters are out in full force with their preseason rankings. Two-time defending national champion Penn State tops them all of course.

The AVCA poll has the Nittany Lions at #1, followed by Texas, Nebraska, Washington, and Stanford. SEC teams represented include Florida at #8, Kentucky at #21, LSU at #37, and Tennessee at #40.

The Volleyball Magazine poll also has it Penn State, Texas, Nebraska, Washington, and Stanford. Florida checks in at #9.

The RichKern.com poll mixes it up a little with Penn State on top followed by Texas, Washington, Nebraska, and California. Florida is at #7, Kentucky at #20, and Tennessee at #49.

Pablo Rankings start the season where things ended the previous year. Here it is Penn State, Stanford, Texas, Nebraska, and Washington. Florida is in at #22, Kentucky at #42, and Tennessee at #43.

ESPN has 5 Burning Questions to start the 2009 volleyball season: “Can Penn State make it three in a row”; “Which team is the biggest threat to Penn State’s reign”; “Can the Pac-10 return to the top”; “Which program could win its first national championship”; “Which unranked team could move up quickly”. An SEC team gets a mention in one of the answers!

And last, a look back. Check out this newspaper clipping from September 26, 1976. The article looks at the Lady Vol volleyball schedule as they prepare for “their first season of intercollegiate competition”.

Following up on the piece earlier this week with the freshmen, the official site today has an article with the four seniors on the Lady Vol volleyball team talking about their time at UT. The gist of it: it goes by so fast; became better players and learned so much thanks to the coaches and staff; so many memories; and this is the year!

Tennessee opens the season with the Lady Vol Classic this weekend, where they will host Tennessee Tech, Western Kentucky, and Lipscomb.

• The Lady Vols are 20-4 in the month of August. At home that improves to 8-1.

• All three opponents this weekend were champions or runners-up in their conferences last season: Tennessee Tech (OVC regular season and tournament champion), Western Kentucky (Sun Belt tournament champion), Lipscomb (Atlantic Sun regular season and tournament runner-up). Two — Tennessee Tech and Western Kentucky — made the NCAA Tournament.

• Opening the season at home is a rare treat for Tennessee fans. In the last 20 years the Lady Vols have had their season opening match at home only 4 times. Only once in the past decade have they started off things here in Knoxville. But Tennessee hasn’t lost a season opener at home since 1978.

• Tennessee is 9-3 in season openers under Coach Rob Patrick. Only two of those matches were at home — both 3-1 wins.

• Tennessee is 26-5 all time in home opening matches (as opposed to season opening matches). Under Coach Rob Patrick that improves is 11-1. The team has not lost its home opener since 2001.

• Tennessee is 26-6 in the Lady Vol Classic under Coach Patrick. Last season UT, Illinois, and Dayton tied for the tournament title (all beat each other 3-2 and all beat Gardner-Webb 3-0) but Dayton won it on a tie-breaker. The Lady Vols have only lost one match in their home tournament since 2004.

Tennessee Tech (2008: 17-12)
Tennessee leads the all time series 27-4-1.
Tennessee lost the last meeting in 1997 3-0 (15-13, 15-12, 15-6).
Game time is Saturday, August 29th at 12:00pm ET
Follow the match with Gametracker or with free live video
TTU match notes – PDF

Western Kentucky (2008: 26-10)
Tennessee leads the all time series 2-0.
Tennessee won the last meeting in 1988 3-0 (15-8, 15-4, 15-0).
Game time is Saturday, August 29th at 7:00pm ET
Follow the match with Gametracker or with free live video

Lipscomb (2008: 21-11)
Tennessee leads the all time series 2-0.
Tennessee won the last meeting in 2005 3-0 (30-11, 30-12, 30-23).
Game time is Sunday, August 30th at 2:30pm ET
Follow the match with Gametracker

Tennessee is reporting that almost every home volleyball match will be streamed live on the internet for free this season. The only matches missing from the list are Lipscomb this Sunday and Mississippi in September (that game will air live on ESPNU).

Despite some recent misgivings the SEC seemed to have about social media, the truth is a lot of conference schools are embracing it for their own use. Most of the schools in the SEC have athletic department Twitter and/or Facebook accounts this season. In fact, some schools are going so far as to give individual teams their own accounts. Most of these are just used as a means to announce press releases or website updates. But some teams are posting much more. Below you’ll find the Twitter screen names of the volleyball programs around the conference and get a taste of the kinds of things they’ve recently posted.

AlabamaVB
• Bama Spelunking Pic#3! Gosh We’re Dirty! – http://twitpic.com/eh3p1 — 11:53 AM Aug 19th

GatorZoneVB
• Florida Volleyball Notebook: Aug. 20 http://bit.ly/478hir — 11:58 PM Aug 20th

Gatormary (Florida head coach Mary Wise)
• One practice today – emphasis on point scoring off the serve. Used the old scoring method. SO glad we moved to rally scoring. — 5:15 PM Aug 19th

GeorgiaVB
• Bulldogs enjoy a fantastic preseason meal at downtown Athens restaurant East West Bistro – http://twitpic.com/dnhr5 — 5:10 PM Aug 12th

KentuckyVB
• We will be signing autographs and giving out posters on Saturday at the Fayette mall food court. 11:30- 1:30. See you then :) — 8:54 PM Aug 19th

lsuvolleyball
• Side Out with Madie Jones posted on LSUsports.net, check it out. http://tiny.cc/IlBPI — 1:15 PM Aug 20th

CoachGetzin (Mississippi head coach Joe Getzin)
• 5am – way too early but giving the team a much needed “wake up call.” — 6:53 AM Aug 20th

MSUvolleyball
• Practices are going great…ready to open up next Friday at home! — 12:25 PM Aug 21st

South Carolina had a Twitter page as SouthCarolinaVB, but it seems they have deleted it. Mississippi’s coach is Twittering, but the team itself is instead posting updates to a blog. While Tennessee does not have a team account, the Lady Vol athletic department is at UTLadyVols. I’m not a huge Facebook fan so I’ll leave it to others to collect that information! (Please note that I am not posting personal accounts. These are all official accounts promoted by the schools.)

Over at the official site today they have a piece with the five new members of the Lady Vol volleyball team talking about their experiences so far. The gist of it: hard, demanding practices; awesome, helpful teammates; and terrific, knowledgeable coaches. Sounds like things are going very well!

Just eight more days! The Big Orange Newsletter has a nice write-up about the upcoming season. It also lists some of the upcoming events and promotions:

• Coach Patrick will do a 15 minute “chalk talk” in the Ray Mears Room before the Western Kentucky and Lipscomb matches.

• Kids 12 and under can attend any regular season home match for just $1.

• Kids 12 and under will get a voucher for a free hot dog and small soft drink at every Sunday afternoon home match.

Looks like blog photos of SEC events might just be OK. In an interview with The Buzz Manager Blog SEC Associate Commissioner of Media Relations Charles Bloom said the following:

• Q: Can you highlight the main components of the policy as it impacts social media? “The intent of the revised policy is not to inhibit social media inside our stadiums with the exception of trying to protect our video rights as they pertain to our television and media partners. Someone in the stadium can enter Twitter feeds or Facebook entries and photographs, but the game footage video is something we will try to protect.”

• Q: This isn’t just about football and basketball, it’s all SEC events and all sports. Is that correct? “All SEC events and all sports.”

• Q: If the intent is fans can’t commercialize from pictures they take in the stadium or tweets or the video they take around the stadium, does that affect a blogger who has advertising on their sites? “The intent is for someone not to create revenue from an entry with the sole purpose of duplicating what’s being done by the conference. If that passes the test, I don’t feel there will be any repercussions.”

UPDATE: More from Bloom in the New York Times:

“We want to protect our rights to have video between the conference and its members, and ban the commercial sale of photo images. Fans can post photos on their site or Facebook page, but they can’t be for sale.”

The Preseason AVCA Division I Coaches Top 25 Poll was released today. Penn State holds the top spot. SEC rivals Florida and Kentucky make the cut at #8 and #21 respectively. Tennessee picked up 16 votes, making them an unofficial #40. LSU also picked up some votes, putting them at #37. Several Tennessee out of conference opponents made the list as well: #16 Michigan, #24 Colorado State, and #41 Louisville.

The 11 conference coaches have made their predictions and believe that Florida will win the SEC for the 19th straight year. Florida received 7 votes, Kentucky 3, and Tennessee 1 (coaches could not vote for their own team). In conference play, Florida is predicted to win the East, while LSU gets the nod for the West. Tennessee is slotted at third in the East. Here are the full standings (1 point for a first place pick, 2 points for a second place pick, etc…)

Eastern Division
Florida – 16 points
Kentucky – 17
Tennessee – 25
South Carolina – 36
Georgia – 46

Western Division
LSU – 10
Ole Miss – 24
Alabama – 25
Auburn – 41
Arkansas – 44
Mississippi State – 51

After releasing new polices that were widely panned by the media and fans, the SEC recently had to make some revisions. Those changes mainly pertained to media issues, so fans were still not happy. Today the SEC has again released revisions to the policy, this time of interest to us regular joes. Twittering is back in, video is still out, photos I’m not sure about yet — we’ll have to wait until someone more versed in legalese weighs in.

Congratulations to Nikki Fowler on being named to the 2009 Preseason All-SEC team. Heading into her third season, this is the 11th time the SEC has honored Fowler for on the court performance (2 preseason teams, 6 weekly awards, 2 postseason teams, and 1 postseason player of the year award).

August 29th (the day the Lady Vols will be taking the court for the first time this season) is just 11 days away! Just like fellow college fall sport football, volleyball seasons have been starting earlier and earlier. In the mid-1970s first serve usually took place in early October. In the early 1980s the season had been pushed up to mid-September. By the end of the decade matches were up to the first of the month. It wasn’t until 1990 that the Lady Vols played their first August match (a 3-0 win vs UT Chattanooga on the last day of the month). Only two more seasons in the 1990s would be played that early. That’s all changed now. Except for 2000 and 2004, every Tennessee season in the “naughts” has started in the eighth month of the year.

Those early season matches have been good to the team. The Lady Vols are 20-4 in August. At home, as the are this season, that improves to 8-1. In August 2007, Tennessee faced their highest ranked opponent ever (a 3-0 loss to #1 Nebraska). The next day they scored their biggest win in the month of August (a 3-2 win over #21 Utah).

Details of the SEC’s new policies for media leaked out last week and caused a pretty big uproar among the mainstream press, blogosphere, and even techy fans. A revised policy just released fixes a few of the more obvious faults. But things are still going to be much more restrictive for everyone from now on. (An example of what may be coming maybe?) I’m not going to go into details here since most of the people that read this probably care more about the volleyball than the press side. But if you’re bringing a phone or a camera to any SEC events this year you might want to check out some of this coverage:

• For SEC, tech-savvy fans might be biggest threats to media exclusivity,
St. Petersburg Times

• SEC’s ‘revised’ policy on blogging and twittering games,
No Silence Here

• SEC’s New Fan and Media Policy Provokes Confusion, Outrage,
Fanhouse

• Jack Lail, News Director of Innovation for the Knoxville News Sentinel, is keeping on top of the coverage with several posts at his blog Random Mumblings:
Blogging has its limits in the SEC,
React to the SEC’s new media policies (or hand over that cell phone),
Send in the tsarina to make a play,
The SEC’s troubling approach to news on the Internet

• Other blogs around the SEC are also contemplating the issue:
Rocky Top Talk, DawgSports, A Sea of Blue, Gator Country

As part of the huge deal the SEC recently signed with ESPN (Google it if you haven’t heard about it, but here’s the gist of it — $2.25 BILLION for exclusive national rights over 15 years!), ESPNU will be airing six SEC volleyball matches. Tennessee will be part of two of those. In addition, the conference said more televised matches will soon be announced. (Presumably on the FSN channels — Fox Sports South, Sun Sports, etc. — with whom ESPN recently contracted to air some of their SEC sports content.)

Mary Wise, head coach of the 18-times-in-a-row SEC champion Florida Gators, said “I think this is easily one of the best things to have happened to SEC Volleyball. The exposure that ESPN provides not only around the country but, arguably around the world, elevates our league to another level.”

SEC Volleyball ESPNU Television Schedule
Sunday, 9/20 – Kentucky at LSU (3 p.m. ET)
Sunday, 9/27 – Mississippi at Tennessee (5 p.m. ET)
Wednesday, 10/7 – Florida at South Carolina (7 p.m. ET)
Sunday, 10/11 – Florida at LSU (7 p.m. ET)
Wednesday, 10/21 – Tennessee at Kentucky (7 p.m. ET)