KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — In October, before Kim Caldwell had coached a game for Tennessee, she sat on an orange couch in her office and tried to get comfortable.

This was both a physical and philosophical challenge for the first-year Lady Volunteers coach at the time. At five months pregnant with her first child, there were certain realities about what “comfortable” might look like moving forward for her, and she missed the caffeine that she had given up months earlier (especially at this point in the year when team prep could seem never-ending).

But there was a deeper question: How does Caldwell — who had coached just 33 Division I basketball games — get comfortable in a position once held by one of the most important people in women’s basketball? And not just that, but how does she proceed when the program had fallen from its previous heights to a middling territory, which in Lady Vols-speak, is as bad as irrelevance? As someone who had coached against just three power conference opponents, how would she come up with the answers to get this program back to the standard that Pat Summitt set?

Caldwell, 36, grew up when Tennessee and UConn ruled women’s college basketball. Summitt and Geno Auriemma — their intensity and their rivalry — broke through the noise to make those epic matchups part of the mainstream sporting culture.

“It made people talk about women’s sports. It made people talk about women’s basketball,” Caldwell said. “It was such an incredible time.”

At her AAU practices in West Virginia, Caldwell’s teams were split up not by Team A versus Team B but by the Lady Vols versus the Huskies. At a tournament as a high school player, she looked into the stands and saw Summitt and Auriemma sitting next to one another evaluating recruits and later, walking past Summitt in the hallway.

She never thought — even as recently as a year ago — that she would be coaching against Auriemma in that rivalry game, or throwing on an orange pullover and walking into tournaments to recruit just like Summitt. Last summer, as she prepared for one such tournament in Chicago, she had to give herself a pep talk before walking into the gym — “Here we go. You’ve got bright orange on. Hold your head up high. Get in there,” she told herself — as she wondered if any players would react to her the way she once had to Summit.

Along with UConn and Stanford, Tennessee is tied to a singular coach like almost no other program in women’s college basketball — or college sports. So even on the days when she doesn’t drive past the nine-foot statue of Summitt outside Thompson-Boling Arena on her way to Tennessee staff offices, she still walks by a glass display of the eight national championship trophies that Summitt won. “The Summitt” is painted in script on the floor where Caldwell now coaches her home games. And then there’s the Tennessee orange. A color that Summitt made iconic.

“I will never be Pat Summitt. Nobody can, but I will strive every day to be someone she would be proud of.”

New Lady Vols head coach Kim Caldwell on the legacy of the program she is about to lead. pic.twitter.com/yMZCs4M2xe

— Karthik Venkataraman (@KarthikV_) April 9, 2024

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In her book, Summitt wrote, “I remember every player — every single one — who wore the Tennessee orange, a shade that our rivals hate, a bold, aggravating color. … But to us, the color is a flag of pride, because it identifies us as Lady Vols and therefore as women of an unmistakable type. Fighters.”

Since Summitt retired in 2012, Tennessee has been fighting. First, to remain at the top, where Summitt had led the program. And then, to retain relevance. Both endeavors were mostly failures, though the program retained some prestige simply because of its history.

Now Caldwell, who had one season of coaching Division I basketball under her belt when she took the job in April, holds the reins to one of the sport’s most important programs.

“There’s an enormous weight that comes with it, and I knew that going into it. You talk about the history, what Pat Summitt did for sports in general, what she did for the state of Tennessee, what she did for basketball,” Caldwell said. “Where basketball is now. … I don’t know that we would be here without her.”

But over the last few seasons, as women’s basketball has grown more and more popular, Tennessee has been strangely missing from the fold. As the game moves forward, Tennessee hopes that its most recent (unexpected) hire means the Lady Vols don’t miss the next chapter, too.

The surprise around the women’s basketball world was palpable last April when Tennessee fired Kellie Harper. Many assumed she would get at least another season to try and turn around the program.

But any surprise around Harper’s firing paled when compared to the reaction when Tennessee announced its new head coach less than a week later: a swift “who?”

Caldwell had just finished her first season at Marshall. Though she had led the mid-major to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1997 (and just the second time in program history), it lost to four-seed Virginia Tech by 43. Before Marshall, Caldwell had spent seven seasons as the head coach at her alma mater, Division II Glenville State University in West Virginia.

The minimal Division I and power conference experience was obvious, but it was just as glaring that she had no ties to Summitt or even the state of Tennessee. The program stayed within the Summitt tree after she retired, hiring Tennessee native Holly Warlick, a longtime assistant and former player under Summitt, and then, in 2019, turned to Harper, a Tennessee native, Summitt protégé and beloved alum. Neither returned the program to its elite perch, failing to reach the Final Four for more than a decade.

Recruits had never witnessed Tennessee achieve the way the program historically had, though their parents remembered. Getting this hire right was important; every passing day seemingly moved the program further from contention.

Given that Harper was fired with four years left on her contract and she had received an extension from Tennessee athletic director Danny White just a year earlier, most in the industry assumed such a drastic move indicated that White planned to swing for the fences. Harper earned $1.1 million a year — making her the 12th highest-paid coach in women’s college hoops — so if the Lady Vols upped that salary even a bit, they could likely lure a high-profile coach to Knoxville. Tennessee alum and Duke coach Kara Lawson and Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon, who had just won two WNBA titles, were considered people White should pursue. USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb was among the prominent names on media coaching lists. A report connected Tennessee’s search firm to Indiana coach Teri Moren.

The names being floated were esteemed within women’s basketball. Lawson, the only UT alum currently coaching at a high level, was the only Summitt connection in the group.

From Knoxville, White felt a pull away from his predecessors, who had hired from the Summitt tree.

“We had already gone through those chapters twice,” he said. “If there was any pressure at all, it was probably more so to go outside (the tree) and try something different. I don’t know if that was real or something I invented myself, but I certainly didn’t feel pressure to stay inside of coach Summitt’s tree.”

In administrative circles, White’s choice was unexpected, but his methods weren’t surprising.

As the Buffalo AD, he hired men’s basketball coach Nate Oats, who had only two years of college experience as an assistant and had only been a head coach of a high school boy’s basketball team. (Alabama hired Oats five seasons later.) White also hired Lance Leipold as Buffalo’s football coach despite Leipold’s previous seven seasons off everyone’s radar at a Division III school. (Kansas hired him five years later.) At UCF in 2018, White hired Josh Heupel. Many assumed Heupel’s career had dead-ended three years earlier and were surprised he was landing a big job. After three bowl game appearances with UCF, White brought Heupel to Tennessee, which is in the College Football Playoff this season as the No. 7 seed.

“He’s kind of got a Midas touch,” Leipold told The Athletic in 2022.

Hiring for the Tennessee women’s job is its own beast. His conversations with Caldwell reminded him of talking to Heupel. He liked that her system was different and exciting, utilizing a full-court pressing defense that forced turnovers, an offense that took early 3s and hockey-style substitutions that kept players’ legs fresh throughout the games. Her sample size at Marshall was small, but the program had gone from .500 in conference play to winning the league title in her first year.

“I think more frequently in different sports, at the highest level, people are seeing,” White said, “that coaching is coaching.”

The decision made one thing clear: Hiring Caldwell could make White look prescient — and more importantly, the move could return Tennessee to the top of women’s basketball — if it works out. If it doesn’t, it likely will be considered an obvious and avoidable misstep in caretaking the program.

For the first time in a long time, more eyes and scrutiny are on Tennessee. Not because of high expectations, but because everyone wants to know: Is Caldwell the answer to the post-Summitt conundrum?

When Caldwell’s agent, Brian Stanchak, called her on April 1 to tell her Tennessee’s search firm was gauging her interest, Caldwell wondered if it was an April Fool’s Day joke.

“Honestly. I was thinking, ‘Anyone but me. There’s got to be people that have more experience under their belt or an assistant,’” Caldwell said. “I mean, it’s been one year (in Division I).”

Caldwell took a call with Tennessee mostly for the experience of interviewing for a prominent position. She was genuinely happy at Marshall. She and her husband, Justin, had just bought their dream house — a four-bedroom custom home on a spacious lot with an apartment above the garage for her mom.

Other mid-major and power conference jobs had come up during her head coaching career, and her response was always the same: “I love winning and I love my players. I don’t love everything else that comes with coaching, right?” she said. “The lower level you are, the more basketball you usually get to do. That’s as honest, as transparent as I can be about it.”

But the Tennessee job was different.

With a tornado warning in West Virginia hitting right before her scheduled interview slot, she huddled in a closet, rather than postponing because of the inclement weather. She sweated through the interview, not because she was nervous but because the closet was so stuffy. When it ended, she thanked Tennessee for the conversation and assumed that would be the end of it.

But when White wanted her to visit Knoxville, it began to sink in that she actually had a shot.

“Do I stay here because I love it and I’m happy, or do I take the best job that I’m ever going to get offered right now?” Caldwell said. “Because I can work for 80 more years, and I will never get offered a job of this magnitude again.”

Caldwell was surprised at how comfortable she felt in Knoxville, and leaned toward a yes if an offer came.

But there were still detractors. Her mom asked why she would leave a state where she was beloved to coach somewhere she wouldn’t be. ”They’re gonna be like: Who is this? Why is she now our coach?” Caldwell said her mom cautioned.

She told her mom the same thing she had told her players: Don’t leave any regrets on the floor.

Danny White when he hired coach Kim Caldwell: “For fans, if you like what you’re seeing inside of Neyland Stadium in terms of the amount of points we score, I think you are going to like what you see on the basketball floor.” https://t.co/Wmq8BFmfiy

— Josh Ward (@Josh_Ward) December 14, 2024

So when White called, she accepted. But she also knew the pressures that would come at Tennessee. An antsy fan base, a motivated athletic department, the women’s basketball world wondering how she could solve a puzzle that had proven impossible for other Division II and mid-major coaches.

“I think you just have to bet on yourself and say, ‘Hey, you’re gonna be uncomfortable for a while, but I was just uncomfortable for six months. Yes, I can be uncomfortable again,’” Caldwell said. “You bet on your own success.”

Every season, Caldwell keeps a notebook on her team, what’s going right and wrong, and, most importantly, how she’s feeling. Even during a season when the pressure is so different and the stage is so much bigger, she finds consistent trends in what she writes and feels from year to year.

“I’m miserable,” she said with a laugh in mid-December. “So I’m right on track.”

This is how it goes for Caldwell’s system: In November and most of December, she’s miserable. She never wants to talk basketball at Thanksgiving. By Christmas? She might be ready to talk hoops as things usually start coming together.

With the Lady Vols sitting at 8-0, a few of the early questions have been answered. Tennessee picked up significant wins over Florida State and Iowa earlier this month, but Caldwell knows SEC play will be different.

Home attendance is the highest in Knoxville since the 2015-16 season, and recruiting took off immediately with Caldwell. She’s already picked up two top-25 players in the 2025 class, matching a pace close to Summitt’s in her final five years. By comparison, Warlick signed 10 in seven seasons, and Harper signed just one in her five classes from 2020-24.

“I was pretty shocked at first. And then I kind of told myself, ‘Why not?’ It’s not like the program was a national powerhouse,” said ESPN analyst Andraya Carter, a member of Summitt’s final recruiting class at Tennessee. “I had a lot of reservations, but I started seeing some of the (recruits) she was getting. I just was like, ‘Let’s go.’ The system that she’s running is literally one where you can’t hesitate, so for me, as an alum, not an analyst, I’m not going to hesitate either. … Let’s see what she’s got.”

Caldwell’s Lady Vols lead the nation with 98 points per game and turn over opponents a nationally best 30 times a game. Last season, Marshall finished in the top five nationally in both categories — so that part feels pretty familiar.

just getting started. pic.twitter.com/7cJKbcFgjb

— Lady Vols Basketball (@LadyVol_Hoops) December 14, 2024

But Caldwell’s still getting used to some differences. At Marshall, she had three assistants, one graduate assistant and two managers. At Tennessee, she has a staff of 13 and nine managers. She never had a video coordinator before coming to Knoxville; now practice and game footage are ready and clipped for her nearly by the time practice is over. She said she learned more during her first three weeks in Knoxville than an entire season at Marshall.

With SEC play around the corner, the toughest tests are still ahead of the Lady Vols, but with each win, the argument grows that White made the right move and Caldwell could be the unexpected answer at Tennessee. Will that be enough to bring the program back to its previous heights? Caldwell’s confident enough to bet on herself and her team.

“You don’t turn it down,” Caldwell said. “And then you spend every day trying to make sure that they realize they didn’t make a mistake.”

(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Photos: Bryan Lynn / Icon Sportswire, Damian Strohmeyer / Sports Illustrated via Getty Images, Donald Page / Getty Images)

Brittany Mahomes and Taylor Swift have notably not spent time together at as many Kansas City Chiefs games this season as last year.

The two are significant others of the top stars on the team in Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, respectively.

The apparent separation came as the two appeared to support different candidates in this year’s presidential election. Mahomes liked a post from Donald Trump on Instagram and wrote several messages regarding her critics, while Swift openly endorsed Kamala Harris.

But the two appear to be all good.

According to multiple outlets, Patrick and Brittany recently attended an Eras Tour-themed party hosted by Swift, and the quarterback rocked a tuxedo similar to the one Kelce wore while on stage at a show. Patrick’s wife wore a sparkly silver dress.

Brittany posted several photos of the event, some of which included Swift, captioning the post, “My people” with a heart emoji.

Patrick, Brittany, Kelce and Swift attended the men’s U.S. Open final after the Chiefs’ first game of the season.

Swift and Mahomes became fast friends watching football in luxury boxes around the country. (David Eulitt)

ESPN STAR FIRES BACK AT AARON RODGERS AFTER JETS QB CALLS ON CRITICS TO SHARE ‘VAX STATUS’

And Swift stood or sat alongside Brittany in the same suite for nearly every Chiefs game last year. However, this year, Swift was only seen with Mahomes twice at games — Oct. 7 against the Saints and Nov. 4 against the Buccaneers. 

The duo made headlines at the Chiefs’ first game against the Ravens when they sat in separate suites to open the season. The two sat separately after Brittany incited backlash for publicly liking a post by Trump on Instagram. Swift fan groups on social media were partially responsible for circulating screenshots of Brittany’s like of Trump’s post. 

Taylor Swift and Brittany Mahomes (Getty Images)

Trump even weighed in on the controversy after Swift endorsed Kamala Harris for president Sept. 10. In an interview on “Fox & Friends” the next day, Trump said he liked Brittany “much better” than Swift. 

Fox News’ Jackson Thompson contributed to this report.

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Of the many things worth hating about college football, most of them are at least tacitly associated with the most hated people in sports: television executives.

They fix games that hurt your team. They don’t fix games that should be fixed to help your team. They find a way to keep those games at four hours. They won’t let their employees say “two-minute warning” even though we all know it’s A TWO-MINUTE WARNING. They’re giving us 18-team leagues with teams that are 18-hour drives apart, and so much stiff Nick Saban acting. They say “harumph” under their breath a lot, when they aren’t breathlessly debating the 36 teams that will make up NFL Campus North and NFL Campus South.

They are, per previous reporting from The Athletic’s Grant Brisbee, “chuzzlewits and pecksniffs.” And by the way, add that World Series Hater’s Guide to the list of targets of this Hater’s Guide, because that one was much funnier. This one, however, does have a curveball in its repertoire: some love for the TV execs. Before getting into the 12 teams of the College Football Playoff and why each is uniquely worthy of deep resentment and scorn, let’s celebrate the one that isn’t here.

Thank you, media rights overlords, for not forcing Alabama into our living rooms when the Crimson Tide didn’t deserve it, even though so many were sure you would. We all know you can buzz into the selection committee deliberation room with a direct order, and I imagine it’s delivered at booming levels by an enormous hologram that gives off a scary “Wizard of Oz” vibe except with the visage of Lou Holtz. You held off this time, and maybe it’s because oil people are scarier than TV people, but whatever. Thank you.

Moreover, thank you for existing and making the resulting SEC administrator/coach/public relations — er, media — weeping such a hoot. Oh, you’re going to stop scheduling competitive nonleague games? Going Mercer-McNeese State-Maine-Murray State and keeping it at eight SEC games if that’s how they’re going to treat you? Here, let us reintroduce you to the people who run the sport.

Greg Sankey may tweet about schedule strength and have a humorous-yet-somewhat-tender anecdote for every coach he introduces at SEC media days, but check out his necktie collection and understand he’ll always side with team “harumph.” So good luck with that.

And good luck, Alabama, in the Spoon Makes Annoying Clinking Sound Against My Cereal Bowl. On to the games that mean more.

Tennessee at Ohio State, winner gets Oregon: Ducks, Bucks and Pilot Flying J welcomes trucks

Apparently, because Ohio State fans are spoiled brats who would rather fire their 66-10 coach and imprison Connor Stalions than win a national championship, more Vols fans are going to gather Saturday at Ohio Stadium than did on Nov. 26, 2017, in Knoxville. That’s the day a bunch of them got together to falsely accuse Ohio State’s defensive coordinator of heinous crimes because they didn’t want him to be their football coach.

Schiano shaming joins mattress burning, butt chugging and mustard bottle chucking in a tapestry of Tennessee embarrassments over the past two decades, but things are much better now thanks to Josh Heupel and his football team. These people are thrilled to be in the Playoff — the Vols are usually fighting for something like the How Much More Would You Trust Raiders Owner Mark Davis If His Haircut Wasn’t A Bowl — and they’re acting like it.

In an elite “X” matchup of fans who post awful things that no one should ever say to other humans, Vols fans have apparently duped Buckeyes fans into selling them their tickets. I’d say I’m surprised, but Ohio State fans also seem to think Knoxville is a tropical paradise in the winter and that temps in the high 20s will make the Vols turtle the way the Buckeyes do every time they see winged helmets.

Just understand, Vols: In Ohio, they actually have elected officials who make up crimes, and felonies at that. If you win, walk quietly to the locker room with your eyes down. If you so much as touch a flag, the punishment will be harsher than the things that Buckeyes Boosters members will be screaming at Ryan Day when he leads his team onto the field Saturday.

Ohio lawmaker proposes bill to make flag planting a felony | Click on the image to read the full story https://t.co/7PJLYaf2Xu

— WJCL News (@WJCLNews) December 12, 2024

Team we’d most hate to reach semifinals: Ohio State. Oregon and its fans can’t really hang. Too many goofy uniform combinations? Too much caffeine in Dan Lanning’s bloodstream? Sure. Phil Knight and Nike’s sordid history? Yes, and Tennessee’s got “Big” Jim Haslam and Pilot Company. But did you see the signs and tailgate props of Browns fans, most of whom are Buckeyes fans, when Deshaun Watson — signed by Jimmy Haslam to the worst contract in sports history — started his tenure? Those people deserve another decade at least of sports misery.

Indiana at Notre Dame, winner gets Georgia: Jimmy Chitwood and Rudy in a slap fight

Has anyone ever worn a visor and not looked like a dolt? Let’s do an online poll, write-in candidates only because I can’t for the life of me come up with a name: The person in human history who has looked coolest wearing a visor is ______.

On an unrelated note, say two things for Georgia coach Kirby Smart: He wins a lot of football games and he convinces his players no one thinks they can win any football games.

His next challenge is to find a way to turn these Bulldogs into underdogs against the winner of the state football championship of a state known for its basketball.

What tradition though, right? Indiana men’s basketball, with all of one Final Four in the past 32 years, having last won it all in 1987, a few months after “Hoosiers” introduced Jimmy Chitwood to movie audiences.

Goodness, the last time IU hoops got as close to a natty as the final 12 teams was in 2002, when Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman was a 16-year-old star linebacker, getting recruited hard by Notre Dame and realizing he’d prefer a program that could sell recent championships (Ohio State) over 1920s newsreels.

But coaching Notre Dame football? It’s a sweet deal — witness Freeman’s contract extension for following up a loss to Northern Illinois with a bunch of wins over teams not quite that bad. He’ll be hailed far and wide if he can beat the Fighting Curt Cignettis. Notre Dame’s last natty was in 1988, a few years before “Rudy” hit theaters. It keeps coming back to the late 1980s, which is fitting because much of that state seems to wish we still lived in the late 1980s.

Team we’d most hate to reach semifinals: Georgia. Sorry, but Sankey sort of Darth Vaders up the whole enterprise. Notre Dame is right there, though. At least 99.99 percent of unaffiliated fans would pick Indiana, which is about as likely as an Indiana Jones sequel in which Indy searches for Knute Rockne’s 1924 practice whistle and trades in his leather fedora for a visor.

SMU at Penn State, winner gets Boise State: Blue field, gold Trans Am, white out

One of the big things they’re watching in this 12-team Playoff is the logistics involved in the four programs that are hosting games. Does everything go smoothly? How does the hotel situation work out? Who do the bowl reps have to pay off to make sure this doesn’t happen again?

It’s especially daunting at Penn State, and not just because the nearest hotel room with a color TV is in Altoona, 44 miles away. Penn State representatives are working hard to fool James Franklin and his team into thinking this is actually a pre-conference game against an FCS opponent. Right down to signs at the local bookstores that read, “Beat Southwest Montana University.”

This means an extensive labyrinth of heaters in the stands, so fans can take part in the traditional “White Out,” but in shorts and T-shirts. No expense is being spared, because we all know how James Franklin and his team react to the words “big game.” If you get into big games against Ryan Day and lose those games, you might have a problem in big games.

One Week#WeAre x #CFBPlayoff pic.twitter.com/TX7bkCpoHC

— Penn State Football (@PennStateFball) December 14, 2024

Now, Penn State fans sometimes go overboard on the Franklin criticism. I saw one after the Ohio State loss who posted that Franklin is “literally taking a blowtorch to this program,” and I had so many questions. Literally? How big of a blowtorch? More of a flamethrower? To the exterior of the football building, the weight room, the footballs themselves? I need more information, including on how the media got away with the cover-up.

Then again, Franklin is incredibly elusive with media, pretending to put on a Harry Potter invisibility cloak and slipping out when he gets tough questions. Big games, schmig schmames. Put my money on Franklin when it’s a big presser and you need a coach who says absolutely nothing.

Team we’d most hate to reach the semifinals: Penn State. It’s almost not worth mentioning. I mean, sure, Boise State has a blue field, which is the sort of thing you’d expect from a team with a postseason ceiling of the Need A Sharper Knife To Scrape The Resin Out Of This Bowl. But it also has Ashton Jeanty. Some of the SMU people are terrifying, but let’s give them some grace — they were missing their football program for a few years.

Speaking of not being able to get out of the late 1980s, we need some new joke fodder for the Mustangs if they’re actually going to be good now — Eric Dickerson’s gold Trans Am and the death penalty have jumped the shark. Figuratively.

Clemson at Texas, winner gets Arizona State: Oh God, You Sun Devil

Did Clemson coach Dabo Swinney already give away the result of the College Football Playoff? Gamblers, pay attention. Here’s what he said to ABC’s Molly McGrath in the moments after his three-loss Tigers beat SMU to claim the ACC title and automatic bid: “We all thought the door was closed on us. But this was God’s plan for us. That’s all I can tell you. God just opened the door and they fought their butts off.”

You know, another person with the same beliefs in the same situation might have kept it to his or her own personal faith and how much strength it has provided, or even how important God has been to certain individuals on the team. A person in that situation might have considered that not all people who root for Clemson have the exact same religious beliefs and that the other team probably has a lot of folks who do, which would make it difficult for God to pick one side or the other in a football game. Some with deep religious beliefs might even have a problem with the idea that God would care about the result of a football game.

But not Dabo! No sirree! Apparently that Clemson fire zone blitz is so good it’s holy, especially when deployed against heathenly opponents. Perhaps then it is written, and not just on Clemson message boards, that Dabo, armed with favor from above, having forgiven the transfer portal, is due for a natty and the resulting bonuses to take that salary higher than $12 million.

Team we’d most hate to reach the semifinals: Clemson. You’ve made Texas a sentimental choice and unworthy of being insulted in this piece, Dabo. For shame. The winner plays Arizona State, a great story, but also a team that might be best off in the Underrated Date In Which You Don’t Have To Spend Or Talk Much Is To Go Bowl.

(Photo of Dabo Swinney: Bob Donnan / Imagn Images)