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Now that the attempted armed robbery charges against Tennessee safety Janzen Jackson have been dismissed, the next step is when he returns to the field.

Don't be surprised if it's this Saturday against Kentucky.

Jackson, one of the Vols' best defenders, has already missed two games since his arrest on Nov. 12. He also missed the game prior to his arrest (Memphis) for a separate suspension.

The decision on Jackson's playing status this weekend will ultimately be left up to Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton, who obviously consults with the university president on these issues.

But there's a big push from the coaching staff to get Jackson back on the field immediately. In fact, there was some hope that the charges were going to be dropped the day before the Ole Miss game on Nov. 14, and the plan then was to play him.

At the end of the day, the district attorney in this case didn't think there was enough evidence to tie Jackson to the attempted robbery. His attorney said Jackson never had any idea an attempted robbery was going to take place and just happened to be in the car when it occurred.

Jackson's two former teammates, Mike Edwards and Nu'Keese Richardson, are still facing charges. They were dismissed from the team last week by Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin.

Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin, obviously having spent some time in the NFL, thinks he knows a first-round pick when he sees one.

And as far as he's concerned, he saw one last Saturday in Ole Miss' Dexter McCluster, who torched the Vols for 324 all-purpose yards and four touchdowns.

"I know what I saw Saturday, and I saw a first-rounder Saturday," Kiffin said. "He’s so difficult to deal with and so hard to tackle. With the long speed that he has, I would sure think that he would be a first-rounder based on what I saw. I assume the question of durability would come up because he’s not touched the ball like that throughout the year like he did in our game, but it didn’t seem to be an issue Saturday."

Kiffin thinks McCluster's 40-yard dash time at the NFL combine will be off the charts.

"I would think he would run comparable to Chris Johnson [of the Tennessee Titans], and you see what he’s doing in the NFL," Kiffin said.

The 5-foot-8, 170-pound McCluster is realistic about where he'll play in the NFL. He knows the chances of his being an every-down running back are remote, but he has no doubt there's a spot for him somewhere at the next level.

"I would say I'll be a slot back, maybe a return man," said McCluster, who's rushed for 591 yards in his last three games against SEC defenses. "But if they’re willing to put me back there at running back, I’ll be happy to jump back there, too.

"I might not be an every-down running back. But to throw a couple of wrinkles in ... I’ll be ready for that."

Taking a look at what all is out there in the world of SEC football:

• LSU quarterback Jordan Jefferson has suffered through another stretch of growing pains ... off the field.
• Alabama's Mark Ingram says he's not getting caught up in any "tongue-tussling" with Auburn's Ben Tate, who said last week that he was the best running back in the state of Alabama.
• As Florida marches toward a potential second straight national championship, the Gators players say they are tuning out the media.
• Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin clarifies his "11 months without an incident" comment.
• It's time for Kiffin to be a disciplinarian, writes Joe Biddle of The Tennessean.
• Chad Bumphis and Leon Berry have put the sizzle back into Mississippi State's return game.
• Auburn coach Gene Chizik will make the correct calls, not the safe ones, writes Evan Woodbery of The Mobile Press-Register.
• Ole Miss is looking for different ways to attack LSU's defense, writes David Brandt of The Jackson Clarion-Ledger.

Checking out what's making headlines around the SEC:

• Gene Chizik's first season at Auburn mirrors Nick Saban's first season at Alabama, writes Kevin Scarbinsky of The Birmingham News.
• Florida coach Urban Meyer says the Gators have seven players who are "NFL quality players" and will have a decision to make after the season.
• Georgia's offensive line is starting to come into its own, which explains why the Bulldogs are running the ball better.
• Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin emphasizes that freshman Nyshier Oliver wasn't arrested during the shoplifting incident earlier this month.
• Mississippi State's defense prepares for one of its toughest tests of the season against the pass in Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett.
• Arkansas defensive coordinator Willy Robinson returns to practice after last week's health scare.
• There won't be any holding back for South Carolina defensive end Cliff Matthews in two weeks against Clemson.
• This season resembles Bobby Johnson's first season at Vanderbilt when the Commodores were winless in the SEC, writes Jeff Lockridge of The Tennessean.

How many times do we see off-the-field trouble come in bunches?

Tennessee is going through one of those stretches right now. Another freshman player, Nyshier Oliver, was cited earlier this month for theft by shoplifting at a Knoxville shopping mall on the same day the Vols were supposed to play later that night against Memphis.

The news of Oliver's legal trouble comes after Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin dismissed freshman players Nu'Keese Richardson and Mike Edwards from the team Monday following their arrests on attempted armed robbery charges last week. A third freshman, Janzen Jackson, was also arrested and charged with attempted armed robbery, but has yet to be kicked off the team.

Jackson has been banned from team activities. But Tennessee coaches are hopeful that the charges against Jackson will be dismissed, paving the way for him to return to the team.

Even after Jackson was arrested last Thursday morning, Kiffin and his staff weren't ruling out that he might be able to play that Saturday against Ole Miss. But the charges weren't dismissed, and none of the three players made the trip.

The charges still haven't been dismissed, but there could be a resolution coming from the district attorney in the next day or two. Through his attorney, Jackson has maintained his innocence and that he wasn't involved in the attempted robbery.

Making the rounds in the SEC:

• With Eddie Gran having already interviewed for the Memphis job, Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin says losing assistants is a "good thing."
• Alabama's players get a laugh out of seeing Nick Saban on the big screen.
• Georgia's win over Auburn opens up a few doors for the Bulldogs, but their bowl outlook is still murky.
• Now that Arkansas has gained bowl eligibility, the next step for the Hogs is to finish strong.
• Kentucky's goals are much loftier than just getting to a bowl, writes Chip Cosby of The Lexington Herald-Leader.
• Mississippi State senior running back Anthony Dixon wants to go out with a bowl game.
• Florida is growing accustomed to its defense sealing the deal in the second half, and the Gators seem to be fine with that.

Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin made the only decision he could Monday in dismissing receiver Nu'Keese Richardson and defensive back Mike Edwards from the team.

Kiffin is still waiting on more information before making a decision on safety Janzen Jackson, presumably to see if charges are dropped against the Vols' freshman starter. In the meantime, Jackson won't be a part of any team activities.

While Jackson's fate remains to be seen, it's clear that Kiffin hasn't completely given up on retaining him. In fact, there were talks among Tennessee officials last Thursday and extending into Friday morning that it may still be possible for Jackson to play in the Ole Miss game.

But none of the players ended up making the trip.

They were arrested last Thursday and charged with attempted armed robbery outside a convenience store near the Tennessee campus.

Jackson has already had multiple disciplinary issues, including a failed drug test, which was one of the factors leading to his suspension for the Memphis game two weeks ago.

At this point, Jackson's only chance of surviving revolves around having the felony charges reduced or dismissed. His attorney has maintained that Jackson is innocent of the charges.

According to the police report, he wasn't one of the two players who actually attempted to rob the two victims while they were sitting in their car at the convenience store. But he was there at the scene and in the car when the players were stopped by police.

Florida had a little trouble. Alabama had very little trouble.

Meanwhile, they move on toward what’s looking more and more like it will be an unbeaten matchup in the SEC championship game on Dec. 5.

At this point, style points are mere fluff for both teams. All they need to do is keep winning.

Florida did that with a 24-14 win over South Carolina after turning the game around in the fourth quarter thanks to Justin Trattou’s interception and 53-yard return. Alabama pounced on Mississippi State in the second quarter and cruised to a 31-3 romp.

Here’s a look at what all we learned in the SEC in Week 11:

1. High Tide offense: Suddenly, Alabama is hitting big plays and spreading the ball around again, which is good news for what’s coming down the road. For the second straight week, the Crimson Tide were more explosive on offense with several different players getting involved. Most encouraging to Alabama fans is that receiver Julio Jones has scored on long touchdown catches for two straight weeks now after scoring just one touchdown in a span of 16 games heading into the LSU game a week ago. When he’s scoring from long distance and involved in this offense, Alabama becomes an entirely different animal offensively. Quarterback Greg McElroy also connected with Darius Hanks on a 45-yard touchdown in the first half. Jones’ 48-yard touchdown came in the second half after Mississippi State had scored its only points of the game. And then on Alabama’s next possession, Mark Ingram burst through a huge hole up the middle and showed that he does indeed have breakaway speed on a 70-yard touchdown run. The Alabama players all talked about the need to generate more explosive plays coming out of that Tennessee game several weeks ago. Well, they’re coming in bunches now.

2. Ole Miss revival: Heading into Saturday’s game with Tennessee, Ole Miss owned one of the more deceiving 6-3 records in college football. The Rebels really hadn’t beaten anybody, with four of their wins coming over “powerhouses” Memphis, Southeastern Louisiana, UAB and Northern Arizona. They needed a quality win in the worst way and got it with their most impressive performance of the season in a 42-17 smackdown of Tennessee at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Not being more of a factor in the Western Division race this season was disappointing, especially given all the preseason hype. But the Rebels (7-3, 3-3) still have a chance to put together a memorable season. They haven’t won nine or more games in back-to-back seasons since 1961 and 1962 when John Vaught was running the show. Their convincing win over the Vols on Saturday and the fact that they’ve finally turned Dexter McCluster loose at running back puts them in a position to finish this season on a roll for the second straight year.

3. Selfish Vols: The Tennessee players went out of their way Saturday following their 42-17 loss to Ole Miss not to use the arrests of their three teammates earlier in the week for alleged attempted armed robbery as an excuse. Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin also barely mentioned it. Kudos to all of them for being so stand-up. But whether the whole embarrassing ordeal was or wasn’t a distraction (and you know it was to some degree), the actions of Janzen Jackson, Mike Edwards and Nu’Keese Richardson were the essence of selfishness. Obviously, they don't care one iota about their teammates, the football program or the university to even put themselves in that position two days before such an important game. Nobody’s passing judgment here. The legal process will run its course. But over and above whether or not they’re guilty of the crime in which they're charged, they deserve to be sent packing for their selfish actions and the sheer stupidity of the whole thing, if nothing else.

4. Fight still left in Gamecocks: You couldn’t help but go into that Florida-South Carolina game wondering if the Gamecocks were like a fighter that was dazed, hurt and just one punch away from hitting the canvas and not getting back up. But they showed that they have plenty of fight left, particularly on defense, and held in there time and time again despite being put in some terrible positions and getting down to the bare bones in terms of depth. The Head Ball coach sounds sincere about wanting to stick around for a few more years, and the way his team fought against the Gators was telling. The Gamecocks mailed it in this time a year ago. Anybody who really knows Steve Spurrier knows that he doesn’t want to go out this way. He likes the young talent in the program and genuinely believes there are better days ahead. He’s confident in this staff and is being careful this season not to let any frustration turn into negative vibes. After a bye next week, a win over Clemson on Nov. 28 at home could change the outlook on this season considerably heading to the bowl game.

5. Another round of scary injuries: These last couple of weeks in the league have seen more scary injuries than any of us want to see. There were long delays in the Ole Miss-Tennessee game and Auburn-Georgia game while players were immobilized and carted off the field for tests. Thankfully, it looks like Tennessee linebacker LaMarcus Thompson is going to be OK after suffering a stinger, and Georgia safety Bacarri Rambo has movement in all of his extremities after suffering a concussion. Going all the way back to the Tim Tebow concussion, there have been more of these type of injuries in the SEC than I can remember in some time. Just last week, Auburn safety Zac Etheridge had his season ended and possibly his career after being briefly paralyzed. He tore ligaments in his neck and cracked the fifth vertebra. There was also the scary scene with South Carolina receiver Moe Brown in the Alabama game where he had to be stabilized and taken to the hospital for tests following a violent hit. I think I speak for everybody in the SEC when I say this is a trend we all want to see end.

They’re dubbing it the “Coach O” Bowl.

	Joe Murphy/Getty Images
	Tennessee assistant Ed Orgeron will coach against some of his former recruits at Ole Miss for the first time.

Ole Miss’ players are talking about it. Tennessee’s players are talking about it. So are Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt and Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin.

The only person who isn’t talking is Ed Orgeron.

He’s declined all interview requests this week as he gets ready to go back to Oxford, where he recruited a slew of talented players and won very few games.

Some of the Ole Miss players swear by him. Junior defensive tackle Jerrell Powe, for instance, talked at length this August about the impact Orgeron had on his football career and how Orgeron continued to believe in him despite it looking like for the longest time that Powe would never become eligible.

Then there’s some who’d probably like to swear at him, not that the volatile Orgeron would be taken aback by such language.

He was known to light into his players verbally.

So much so that senior receiver Shay Hodge told The Jackson Clarion-Ledger following the Rebels’ win over Northern Arizona last week that this game was “personal” for a lot of the players.

“Coach O never did anything to me, but the way I saw him treat some people, I know some guys are going to come out with a real fire in their belly and get after them pretty bad,” Hodge said.

Perhaps it was Ole Miss junior defensive end Kentrell Lockett who shed the most candid perspective on Orgeron’s time in Oxford.

In short, he’s one of the best defensive line coaches in college football and one of the most dogged recruiters in college football. But as a head coach …

He was 0-8 in the SEC in his final season and lost 21 of the 24 games he coached in against SEC teams.

“Great guy, but he just wasn’t that head coach,” Lockett told the Clarion-Ledger. “He was a great D-line coach, but he wasn’t that head coach. I haven’t talked to him since [Orgeron was fired]. I might get a chance to talk to him after the game Saturday, might not.

“But life goes on, you know?”

And so has Orgeron. He’s been a huge part of Tennessee’s recruiting machine under Kiffin and has made quite an impression on the Vols’ players.

Yes, he’s still loud with that unmistakable voice. And, yes, he’s been known to rip off his shirt to fire up the guys.

But you’d be hard-pressed to find anybody on Tennessee’s team to say a negative word about him.

His fire has epitomized the way the Vols have played this season and is a big reason they’ve won three of their last four games and are playing their best football right now.

“Yes, Coach O can take it up a notch,” Tennessee junior defensive end Chris Walker said. “We have only seen a little bit of it. We know he can be more intense than he has been, so we’re kind of expecting it this week.

“He’s an awesome coach to play for. He teaches us the details of things we haven’t learned since we’ve been here.”

Kiffin says in a lot of ways that Orgeron was a more important piece to this coaching staff puzzle than even Kiffin’s dad, Monte.

In fact, the two Kiffins went down to Destin, Fla., to recruit Orgeron together when it looked like he might be going to LSU. They changed his mind that day.

“Having worked with him at USC, he knows exactly what I want and exactly how I want to do it,” Kiffin said. “We had to have him.”

Two days before a key road trip to Ole Miss, Lane Kiffin faces the first real crisis of his Tennessee head coaching tenure.

Three of his players, all guys he recruited, were arrested early Thursday morning on attempted armed robbery charges after police said they attempted to rob some people sitting in a car outside a convenience store in Knoxville.

According to police, a powered pellet gun was found in the car the players were in after they were stopped by police near the dormitory on campus where the freshman players live at Tennessee.

Kiffin hasn't made any comment yet and probably won't until he gathers more facts about the case.

Janzen Jackson already has a couple of strikes against him, but if you read the police report, it sounds like he might not have been with the other two players when they actually went up to the car and tried to rob the victims.

Here's the other thing: Jackson is the best player among the three and one of the top freshmen in the SEC this season. So it will be interesting to see how that dynamic plays out. His failed drug test, one of the things that led to his suspension from the Memphis game last week, won't help him.

Either way, Tennessee needs to act swiftly and decisively.

There's also a little cruel irony here for the Vols.

Remember Kiffin jokingly saying two weeks ago that maybe the Vols had earned a little "street cred" after rapper Lil Wayne dropped a reference to Kiffin talking (bleep) in one of his recent songs?

Well, this is the kind of "street cred" no program wants and can be poison for recruiting.