KNOXVILLE — Brandon Warren and Gerald Williams have taken curious routes to this point in their college football careers.

But if either potential star transfer suits up for the University of Tennessee this season, it will compete a circular journey.

Warren the tight end and Williams the middle linebacker proudly displayed their orange Saturday morning, smiling widely as Nos. 1 and 57 in the team photograph inside Neyland Stadium.

Tough luck and poor decisions have kept the two potential All-Southeastern Conference players from wearing those jerseys on a fall Saturday, but both are close to finally becoming Volunteers.

Neither player’s path was finalized with their summer admittance to UT. Williams must pass the math class he’s taking in the second summer term, and Warren awaits an SEC eligibility ruling — the last step in a long ladder he’s climbed since abruptly leaving Florida State in January 2007 to be near his cancer-stricken mother in nearby Alcoa.

Williams’ road has been equally erratic. The NCAA Clearinghouse pulled the 2005 high school signee off UT’s practice field that August, and he’s spent the past three years at Fork Union (Va.) Military Academy and City College of San Francisco trying to return.

“Obviously, those two young men could have an impact on our football team,” Vols coach Phillip Fulmer said. “I just hope they get the opportunity.”

Each has three seasons to play his last three years of eligibility, adding more incentive to get started now.

“Man, I hope so,” Williams said. “It’s been too long.”

“Way too long,” added Warren, rated by Rivals.com in 2006 as the nation’s No. 3 overall prospect.

Williams looks bigger than the 6-foot-4, 260 pounds at which he’s listed, and he claims to still run the 40-yard dash in under 4.7 seconds. Warren is near his 6-2, 230-pound size at FSU, where he was named a Freshman All-American.

“I did extra workouts all summer, because I was off for a while and needed to catch up a little bit,” Warren said. “I’m stronger here than I was at Florida State. I’ve had this whole summer to get myself ready, and I’m looking forward to it.”

Vols junior safety Demetrice Morley — a longtime friend of Williams and a fellow Floridian with documented academic issues — said Williams was overcome with emotion upon his summer return.

“When he came in his and saw his locker with ‘Williams’ on it, he took so many pictures of it with his phone,” Morley said. “He was just so excited. I was so thrilled to see him like that.

“I was the same way when I got back in. It makes all the hard work you put in seem worth it.”

Morley, Williams and offensive guard Vladimir Richard have been close since their high school days, and Williams said Richard “called me every day I was gone.

“I wouldn’t be here without my brother Vladimir,” Williams said.

His junior college degree at last allowed him to control his future. He originally met NCAA requirements out of high school, but the Clearinghouse said an SAT score rose too much from previous tests.

Warren has met academic requirements since his risky decision to leave FSU just weeks after starting the spring 2007 semester. Seminoles coach Bobby Bowden’s decision not to release Warren from his scholarship was upheld by a school faculty committee, so Warren (along with Morley) enrolled at Knoxville’s Pellissippi State Technical Community College to enroll at UT via associate’s degree.

Warren’s process has been slowed by Bowden’s decision, a topic on which he and FSU officials have never wavered. Warren’s mother had cancer when he committed to and signed with the Seminoles, but he started regretting that choice when his mother’s health forced the family to cancel the first of several trips to watch him play that season.

“I have respect for the program and stuff,” Warren said. “I don’t really have too many bad feelings. I just wish they would have made the right decision.

“My mom had letters from Coach Bowden and other coaches : ‘get well’ letters. But it’s a business, and sometimes we’re treated like ... I don’t know. I don’t even really want to discuss Florida State, honestly.”

And he quickly ceased to mention the Seminoles after a pointed, parting shot.

“I met with Coach Bowden a couple of times before I decided to leave; it wasn’t like I just left,” Warren said. “I wanted to meet with him and talk to him and let him know how I felt. He told me that they weren’t going to let me go, no matter what I did. It was just a crazy situation.

“With them knowing everything about everything, it just kind of took me by surprise a little bit, just because Coach Bowden’s supposed to be a Christian man and all that.”

Williams restrained himself while commenting on the NCAA, but Fulmer fired away. He said college athletics’ governing body made a “reaction-type” ruling on Williams — who, like Morley, graduated from University High, an unaccredited school exposed by The New York Times in November 2005 as an athletes’ diploma mill.

“I’ve never seen a guy pay the price (Williams) has paid to come to a school,” Fulmer said. “I think that on the very front end, he got a bad deal, all because of a reaction-type thing. He’s stuck with us and stayed with us and done what he needed to do to finally get back here. He’s a wonderful young man.”

Williams said he “obviously” disagreed with the route he’s been forced to take.

“But at the end of the day, I’m not going to hate on some people who were just doing their jobs,” he continued. “I’m here now, and I’m really happy, so I just want to move on.”

Warren, whose 2.8 junior college GPA got him admitted to UT, is awaiting a ruling from SEC commissioner Mike Slive. Fulmer and Warren claim to understand the delay, but they’re also growing fidgety.

“Apparently, the commissioner is up to his neck and eyeballs working with the TV contracts and so forth,” Fulmer said. “We just have not gotten an answer back, which I think is long overdue.

“We’re very hopeful. ... We hope to get some kind of resolution to that shortly.”

Said Warren: “I wish the process would hurry, but I understand that (the SEC is) dealing with a lot, too. I’m sure there’s other players in the country in similar situations.”

Teammate Williams, for one.

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