Tennessee coaching legend Phillip Fulmer expects the Volunteers to play Alabama twice this season — once on Oct. 15 for a highly anticipated Week 7 matchup, and the other being the SEC Championship Game.

The Vols haven’t won on the Third Saturday in October since 2006 and haven’t been to Atlanta for a conference title bout since 2007, which both happen to be years in which Fulmer was still head coach. Still, the 65-year-old Hall of Famer believes this season is as good as any for Rocky Top to return to national prominence.

“Absolutely it does,” Fulmer told the Times Free Press when asked whether he thinks Tennessee is a top-10 team. “I’ve had a chance to go over and watch practice a couple of times, actually two or three times, and they have all the tools to have a really, really good team. I think the progress has been steady and normal, and that last year we had a chance to jump it a little bit faster by beating Oklahoma or Florida, which were both really strange games. We’re sitting here now with a chance to win the East, and I don’t think there is a great team in the East other than maybe us.

“I think we could play Alabama once in the regular season and then again in the SEC Championship Game, but that would depend on a lot of things, like not getting injuries and playing up to our potential. If you’re just talking about preseason expectations, I don’t think there’s any doubt we’re one of the best teams in the SEC.”

From 2008-14, Tennessee was 40-47 overall and 17-39 against conference opponents. But after concluded the 2015 season with six straight victories — including a 45-6 blowout win over Northwestern in the Outback Bowl — the Volunteers and their 17 returning starters (t-5th most in the FBS) are widely assumed to have a breakthrough in what will be Butch Jones’ fourth year as coach.