I was listening to Phil Fulmer on a talk show here and Knoxville and he was asked why recruiting went so well this year. (UT is ranked anywhere from 1-5 depending on the service and the day). Aside for the tradition and all that yadd yadda, these are the things he said:
Playing on TV a lot. (Another thing that recruits often mention is the checkerboard endzone-they really like that)
Playing the season opener when they were the onlygame on TeeVee.
Wearing throwback jerseys in the aformentioned game.
Starting two freshmen at quarterback. The odd thing here is that UT generally plays about half of their freshmen class, but since the high profile players got to start recruits took notice and felt that UT was where they might play right away.
Interesting how the image related things are things that Fulmer felt pushed them up a notch.