It’s easy, and perhaps now natural, to take a Tennessee performance like this against a group-of-five school and lament what it wasn’t. A hallmark of Tennessee’s post-2007 swoon is some combination of inability and unwillingness to dominate mid-majors. Starting with a four-point win over Northern Illinois and a loss to Wyoming in 2008, every single season has included a “meh” moment. Some calls are closer than others: UAB in 2010, Troy in 2012, South Alabama in 2013, UMass in 2017, and of course Georgia State in September. But these years also include plenty of scores like 24-0 over North Texas, 28-19 over Ohio, and 14-3 over Charlotte last year.

UAB was 6-1 and 16-3 over its last 19, but it was clear from the outset the 2019 Blazers were painfully short on competition. Tennessee’s defense dominated, included a record-tying performance from Bryce Thompson. Tennessee’s offense had their moments, but didn’t capitalize the way you wanted with such great field position. The red zone performance was more of the unfortunate same: five trips but only three touchdowns, leaving the Vols with only 14 touchdowns on 32 trips this season, 126th nationally in red zone touchdown percentage. (Stats via SportSource Analytics)

That remains Tennessee’s greatest statistical weakness, and an important one in these last three games. The decision to play Jarrett Guarantano most of the night, even with a surgically-repaired non-throwing hand, resurfaced some of our anxiety at quarterback after a brief spark from Brian Maurer and, truly, one of the best passing performances of the decade from Guarantano and J.T. Shrout just last week. Last night’s performance makes last week look even better, but mixes in old fears with new hopes.

But viewed through the lens of the entire season, Tennessee is still moving hard and fast in the right direction. In that long list of mid-major disappointments, you get lines like -22.5 in a 14-3 win over Charlotte, -28 in a 17-13 win over UMass, -27 in a 28-19 win over Ohio, etc.

Last night, due both to Tennessee’s start and UAB’s consistency, the Vols were only -13.5, and won by 23. The Vols have now covered the spread four weeks in a row for the first time since 2010, and just the 10th time in the last 35 years (closing lines via covers.com). Tennessee made it five weeks in a row at the end of the 2010 regular season thanks to Tyler Bray, who helped the Vols cover in defeat at South Carolina, then went 4-0 straight up and against Vegas in November. Before that, the last time Tennessee covered five straight weeks: the first five games of 1998.

Vegas, like the rest of us, hasn’t had a good feel for Tennessee all year. The Vols were overvalued by 62.5 points in their first four FBS games, and have now been undervalued by 61 points in the last four games. It’s a tangible sign of an actual turnaround. But the Vols have to get this thing to six wins to still call it that in the off-season.

Tennessee was 4-5 headed into this stretch last season, but got what felt like a revelation in the 24-7 win over #12 Kentucky. And then it turned out the prophets were false.

This time, there will be no revelations unless Missouri creates one first: Kentucky is 4-4, Missouri 5-3 and set to face Georgia and Florida back-to-back, and Vanderbilt is 2-6. The journey ventured through the upside-down, but the end result we wanted in preseason – rise above the SEC East’s second tier, close the gap on your biggest rivals – is here for the taking. The turnaround narrative – and its chance to last us all off-season, and spend eight months thinking about what will be instead of what could’ve been – is alive. Whether the Vols cover or not, play Guarantano or not, or any number of the uncertainties that have defined this season, the Vols need two wins in three games. Three in three, and I still believe the Vols can be in line for a much nicer bowl opportunity than we thought even in preseason.

Hope lives, even if we saw some glimpses of what tried to take it away against UAB. The Vols still played better than expected all things considered, and by Vegas’ standards have done so more consistently now than in nine years. The margins remain small and the questions many, but for the last month Tennessee has found the right answer again and again. Hope lives. It should probably hang on tight.

Go Vols.

If J.T. Shrout attempts four more passes – seems likely at this point – it will be the third time in the post-Fulmer era the Vols had three quarterbacks attempt at least 25 passes. It happened at the end of the disastrous 2017 season via Will McBride (17-of-40 in two appearances). And it happened in the middle of 2011 with Tyler Bray’s broken thumb, and Derek Dooley’s decision to pull Justin Worley’s redshirt. Worley did get a win against MTSU. But in terms of this kind of success against meaningful competition, you have to go back to 2004 with Brent Schaeffer, Erik Ainge, and Rick Clausen.

The 2019 Vols aren’t going to win the SEC East (but we can still Lloyd Christmas it another week if Georgia wins tomorrow!) but can still engineer an incredible turnaround. One way to measure that: what the Vols are currently doing against Vegas. After losing as a 24.5-point favorite to Georgia State and a three-point favorite to BYU, the Vols were +12.5 at Florida and lost by 31. That’s a 57-point swing in the first three FBS games (closing lines via covers.com), plus another five in losing to Georgia by 29 at +24.

Those five points are as close as Vegas has come on any Tennessee game this year. Because since then, the Vols beat Mississippi State as an underdog by 10, covered easily against Alabama, and beat South Carolina as an underdog by 20.

Two wins as an underdog of at least +4 isn’t new: the Vols did that last year against Auburn and Kentucky. But Vegas has now undervalued the Vols by a combined 51.5 points in the last three weeks.

It’s just the fifth time this decade the Vols have covered the spread three weeks in a row. Tennessee did it twice in 2015, and Josh Dobbs did it himself in 2014 (Alabama, South Carolina, Kentucky). For the (hopefully) best comparison here, you have to go all the way back to Tyler Bray’s emergence: his appearance at South Carolina in 2010 and subsequent 4-0 run to end the regular season is the last time the Vols covered the spread at least four weeks in a row, getting to five in that run. Tennessee’s 52-14 win over Ole Miss in that stretch when the Vols were just -2.5 is the most I’ve seen UT undervalued this decade.

As the Vols (currently -12) look to make it four in a row this week, the opponent lends itself to additional mystery:

Joel’s statsy preview machine agrees with chaos this week. If you’re looking for regression to the mean, this probably isn’t the week for that since no one really knows what the mean is with UAB. It’s one more element of unpredictability in an already-massively-unpredictable season that might feature three quarterbacks and a wide receiver taking snaps at quarterback.

In such a time as this, the Vols should again look to their defense and run game to carry them; we learned last week that can look much more exciting than you think. Will we get the game we thought we’d see against Georgia State? Will UAB – winners of 16 of their last 19 games! – parlay that spirit into another competitive game? Will the Vols commit to a rotation between quarterbacks (whether it’s all three or only two with Guarantano’s wrist), or start one and ride him as long as he’s hot? Will that kind of plan – one bad throw away from the bench – affect the young quarterbacks?

Bowl expectations are riding high – 5.72 is the updated community average in our expected win total machine – but the most reasonable expectation truly remains the unexpected. Hopefully that manifests itself as another great performance from multiple quarterbacks and another Saturday to celebrate.