KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP)—Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer still gets the jitters at the start of football season, even though he’s been through 16 of them already.

“This time of year I start getting butterflies about all the things that can happen in a game,” he said Tuesday. “You try to cover every situation that can happen.”

His fear isn’t unfounded. The 18th-ranked Volunteers have little room for error with so many tough opponents coming during the first half of the season, starting with UCLA on Monday.

Tennessee had a rough start last season from the very first drive of their first game at California, when a fumble by quarterback Erik Ainge was returned by Golden Bears linebacker Worrell Williams 44 yards for a score.

After struggling with tackling and giving up several more huge plays, the Vols went on to lose to Cal 45-31 and struggled to recover from the loss for the first half of the season.

STATESVILLE, North Carolina (Ticker)—Reed Sorenson will be driving a different Dodge next season.

Gillett Evernham Motorsports announced Tuesday that Sorenson has signed a multi-year contract to join the team for the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup season and beyond. Sorenson’s car and sponsor will be announced at a later date.

Sorenson, 22, will finish the season in the No. 41 Dodge of Chip Ganassi Racing, where he has a career-best finish of third in 97 career Cup races.

Sorenson has struggled this season with Ganassi as his best finish is a fifth in the season-opening Daytona 500.

“Reed is a highly talented driver with a wealth of experience and accomplishments for a 22-year-old,” said Mark McArdle, the team’s vice president and managing director of competition. “We believe he has a great future ahead of him here at Gillett Evernham Motorsports. He will be a great fit with our drivers, sponsors and employees.”

By Scott Serrano
PA SportsTicker Auto Racing Editor

(C) 2008 PA SPORTSTICKER, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

All the buzz following Saturday night’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Bristol centered around the budding battle between Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards.

Don’t get me wrong - seemingly all the pieces are in place for the sport to finally have another full-blown, bona fide rivalry. It can be viewed as the good guy (aw-shucks Edwards) vs. the bad guy (unapologetic, preening Busch).

But how many rivals does this make for Busch this year? First he had to learn to play nice with new teammates Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin at Joe Gibbs Racing.

Then there was talk that Kyle’s relationship with older brother Kurt was fractured after the two tangled at the All-Star race.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP)—The Budweiser Shootout at Daytona will be around at least three more years with a new format that places the emphasis on the four manufacturers in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup series.

Anheuser-Busch official Tony Ponturo made the announcement of the contract extension and the format changes Tuesday. He was joined by Daytona International Speedway president Robin Braig and NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter.

The 31st annual season-opening event at Daytona International Speedway on Feb. 7 will have a field of 24 cars representing the top six teams from Chevrolet, Dodge, Ford and Toyota. It will be based on the final 2008 car owner points.

“This could not be better timing,” Hunter said. “It’s no secret that the manufacturers need all the exposure they can get right now. This is a good strategic move in that direction.”

Reed Sorenson isn’t waiting for Chip Ganassi Racing to figure out the Car of Tomorrow.

The 22-year-old driver signed a multiyear contract to join Gillett Evernham Motorsports next season, where he’ll join Kasey Kahne and Elliott Sadler.

Sorenson said his decision to leave Ganassi, where he began his NASCAR career as a precocious 18-year-old, was difficult but necessary.

“I’m going over here to try to make myself a better racecar driver,” Sorenson said during a conference call Tuesday shortly after the announcement. “I wanted to be more competitive and I wanted to have some more opportunities to win races and things like that.”

Sorenson made a splash in the Nationwide Series, finishing fourth in 2005. He moved full-time to the Sprint Cup the next season, but his team has struggled to compete. He has never finished better than 22nd in the season points race and enters this weekend’s stop in California 31st in the standings.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP)—Indiana senior forward Kyle Taber will undergo surgery on his knee Wednesday and is expected to be out for 10 weeks.

Coach Tom Crean said Tuesday that Taber injured the knee last week.

Neither the nature of Taber’s injury nor which knee was injured was disclosed.

The 6-foot-7 Taber started four games last season, averaging 1.3 points and 2.5 rebounds in 22 games. He is the only returning scholarship player for the Hoosiers, who are still awaiting possible sanctions by the NCAA for telephone recruiting violations by former coach Kelvin Sampson.

“This is very unfortunate for Kyle,” Crean said. “He has been a strong presence and has done things the right way for us since we arrived here. We will move forward and help him through his rehabilitation and look to him to provide us with the leadership that is expected from a fifth-year senior at Indiana.”

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP)—Former NBA player Wayman Tisdale had part of his right leg amputated Monday because of bone cancer.

Tisdale, 44, revealed on his Web site that the surgery was scheduled for Monday. His wife, Regina, told The Associated Press on Tuesday night the surgery had taken place as planned.

“Everything went well,” she said.

Tisdale, a 6-foot-9 Tulsa native who played for Oklahoma before spending 12 seasons in the NBA with the Indiana Pacers, Sacramento Kings and Phoenix Suns, first learned he had cancerous cyst below his right knee after he broke his leg in a fall at his home in Los Angeles on Feb. 8, 2007.

Tisdale, now an award-winning jazz musician, under went treatment and later had knee replacement surgery and resumed touring. Tisdale was still undergoing chemotherapy when he told the AP in June that “I feel better than ever. I’m excited. I’ve got a whole new look on life. I look at life on a whole ‘nother radar.”