Under normal circumstances, Northern Illinois' visit to Neyland Stadium would be categorized as a break.

Sandwiched between a trip to Auburn and a trip to Georgia, this was supposed to be a breather for Tennessee in the middle of a make-or-break stretch of SEC games.

Tonight's 7 p.m. kickoff (TV: Pay-per-view) is anything but a breather. But it is a break, as in a chance to begin curing what has ailed the Vols since an upset loss at UCLA to start the season.

And the elixir is offense.

"With our season, this is not a break," said coordinator Dave Clawson, whose UT offense ranks 81st nationally in yards per game (340.8) and 101st in points scored per game (19.3). "I have not thought one fraction of a second about whoever we play next. This is the game. We need to play well. We need to move the ball on offense. We need to be productive. We need to play well."

That is to say, Tennessee's quarterback needs to play well.

After their worst passing performance in recent memory in last week's 14-12 loss at Auburn - and in a decade, if you look at yardage - the Vols (1-3, 0-2 SEC) opened up the quarterback competition this week in practice.

On Friday, the needle settled on Nick Stephens. Now it's up to the redshirt sophomore to show he can move UT's offense and be more productive than Jonathan Crompton, who started UT's previous four games.

"Nick's got a little swagger about him that you like," UT coach Phillip Fulmer said Friday, shortly after announcing Stephens as the starter. "A little bit of a gunslinger. I don't want him to force balls, but he has the ability to make plays, as Jon does. Jon hasn't done that on a frequent enough occasion."

Stephens, on the other hand, hasn't had much of a chance to show what he can do in a game.

His only action this season - and the only snaps of his career aside from a JV game last fall - came in a 35-3 victory over UAB on Sept. 13. Stephens was 1-for-2 with a 42-yard completion to tight end Brandon Warren and a 5-yard scramble.

Fulmer hopes the change can jump-start UT's struggling offense.

"Nick has made progress and he deserves the chance to see how he does in a football game. That's for our team," Fulmer said. "We need an offensive lift at this point, and the team is first."

What happens at quarterback today goes a long way toward deciding who plays next week, when Tennessee travels to No. 11 Georgia needing a win to cling to relevance in a crowded SEC race.

Juggling quarterbacks for another week certainly won't help matters.

"Anytime your quarterback position is in flux through a season, it's rarely a good thing," Clawson said. "You want it to be settled, but it can't be settled just for the sake of being settled. It's got to be settled because the person performs well and they're consistent week in, week out and they run the team. All those things have to happen on their own. They have to happen naturally. If it's not happening, you can't pretend it's happening."

If it's going to happen soon, it needs to start this week for Tennessee. But Northern Illinois (2-2) is only half the battle for the Vols.

Sure, the Huskies, a member of the MAC, have outscored their last two opponents by a combined 85-3 margin. They took Minnesota to the brink a 31-27 loss to start their season. And there's that bit about defeating No. 21 Alabama on their last trip to SEC country in 2003.

Tailback Me'co Brown (211 yards, two touchdowns), Montell Clanton (111 yards, 1 touchdown) and Justin Anderson (117 yards, two touchdowns) will all carry the ball tonight. The Huskies could also play three different quarterbacks, if need be.

Still Northern Illinois, even with a defense ranked 30th in the nation in total yards allowed and 22nd in the nation in points allowed, remains Public Enemy No. 2.

Tennessee's offense, as players and coaches have said time and again, is its own worst enemy.

Whether it's a quarterback who doesn't consistently make it through his reads or turnovers that give opponents points or take Tennessee points off the board, the Vols have had all measure of self-inflicted woes.

And while it's not exactly by-the-book to begin a quarterback battle four games into the season, it can't be a lot more damaging than an offense that simply hasn't been able to turn yards into points or - like last week - find 10 yards for a chance at three points and a game-winning field goal.

"It's not like we're in a rhythm now," Clawson said. "It's not like you're disrupting something that's going really well. We need a little disruption right now. We need to get a spark, and we need to get things going."

And if the Vols are going to bounce back from a disastarous start and rise out of last place in the SEC East, it's got to start now.

Drew Edwards covers University of Tennessee football. He may be reached at 865-342-6274.

© 2008, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.