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Expectations for the Vols the rest of the season

Joel Hollingsworth
SEC pylon

Last week featured a bye for the Vols, a few upsets, and a few mild surprises. What’s it mean for the rest of the season?

Explanations are below, but here’s the updated chart for this week:

The Vols after the bye

Tennessee didn’t play this week, of course, but that doesn’t mean opinions of the team and its prospects for the immediate future can’t change based on other happenings. Take, for instance, the fight between Darrell Taylor and Trey Smith. Here’s the information we have on the incident:

This sounds to me more like a post-play scrum that got out of hand due to heightened emotions with everybody flailing about and an incidental kick to the face as a consequence than it does Taylor curb-stomping Smith, but we’re all filling in the gaps with our own conjecture. My first thought was actually that someone must have finally lit a fire under the Vols’ linemen in an attempt to get them to play with some emotion and that our best defensive lineman and our best offensive lineman were getting after it in practice and the play got a little out of hand. But it’s not surprising, either, that some would view the news as more evidence of a broken team. When that train gets rolling, it colors the perception of everything.

[EDIT: Yeah, about that. Jones has reportedly now suspended Taylor indefinitely, but not Smith. At the least, that almost certainly means that Taylor was more at fault than Smith and that it probably wasn’t just some regular scrum between two amped-up players and makes it look more like bad news than no news.]

Without more information, though, I’m viewing it as something that wouldn’t have bothered us if we weren’t already on high alert for bad news, and so I’m making no adjustments for the team itself this week. The expectations were bad enough already after last week.

Non-opponents

We usually only look at how the Vols did and how the Vols’ past and future opponents did the prior week to inform our new expectations for the week, but this weekend reminded me once again that we’re all generally terrible at guessing the future based on the past. Things we’d never expect to happen often happen anyway. Sometimes, favorites lose to unranked teams at home (LSU last week, Oklahoma and Michigan this week). And sometimes, teams that look like they’re destined for the trash heap (LSU, Texas A&M) begin to piece things together and beat rivals in difficult places to play or give the decade’s best team an actual real game against all odds.

The past may portend the future, but it doesn’t always define it.

The Vols’ past opponents

Georgia Tech (3-1, 2-0 ACC, RV)

Did not play. They are tied with Miami for first in the ACC Coastal after six weeks, though.

Indiana State (0-5, 0-2 MVFC, NR)

Oof. The North Dakota State contest was the Sycamores’ first home game in 37 days, and they threw three interceptions and lost three fumbles.

Florida (3-2, 3-1 SEC, RV)

Well, the Gators finally got unlucky. I have no idea what to make of these guys.

UMass (0-6, 0-0 IND, NR)

Bye.

Georgia (6-0, 3-0 SEC, #4)

If there’s any good news here, it’s that these guys got 423 yards rushing against Vandy, which makes the 294 they got in the rout against Tennessee a bit more palatable. The Bulldogs look really, really good. Auburn appears to be the only stumbling block for them, and honestly, it’s beginning to look like they could actually make things interesting against Alabama, especially if they can improve the passing game just a little bit more to complement that run game.

The Vols’ future opponents

10/14/17: South Carolina (4-2, 2-2 SEC, NR)

Expectations for a Vols win: Well, a 48-22 win over Arkansas was not what I wanted to see. Three touchdowns on defense? Is that good news or bad news? Also, the Gamecocks offense scored on five of eight possessions in the last three quarters. Sigh. I made this a 50/50 game last week, and while I am inclined to change it to give South Carolina the edge this week, I think I’m going to leave it as is.

PREDICTIONS – SOUTH CAROLINA
W1 W2 W3 W4 W5 W6 W7 W8 W9 W10 W11 W12 W13
69 69 60 75 75 50 50

10/21/17: Alabama (6-0, 3-0 SEC, #1)

Expectations for a Vols win: Hey, look! A 26.5-point underdog with a coach on the hot seat just got within eight points of beating Alabama! They are not as good as everybody thinks! I’m moving this game from a 1% chance back to a 5% chance. Woo!

PREDICTIONS – ALABAMA
W1 W2 W3 W4 W5 W6 W7 W8 W9 W10 W11 W12 W13
10 10 10 10 5 1 5

10/28/17: Kentucky (5-1, 2-1 SEC, RV)

Expectations for a Vols win: To say that the Wildcats outlasted Missouri is really the only way to describe this game. I’m going to keep this one 50/50.

PREDICTIONS – KENTUCKY
W1 W2 W3 W4 W5 W6 W7 W8 W9 W10 W11 W12 W13
65 65 70 65 55 50 50

11/4/17: Southern Miss (3-2, 1-1 C-USA, NR)

Expectations for a Vols win: UTSA actually threw a touchdown pass with 48 seconds left in the this one, but failed on the 2-point conversion attempt and lost by two. I’m keeping this one at 55%.

PREDICTIONS – SOUTHERN MISS
W1 W2 W3 W4 W5 W6 W7 W8 W9 W10 W11 W12 W13
90 85 80 80 70 55 55

11/11/17: Missouri (1-4, 0-3 SEC, NR)

Expectations for a Vols win: Before you get too excited about that 1-4 overall and 0-3 SEC record, chew on this: Missouri quarterback threw touchdown passes of 50, 58, and 75 yards against Kentucky. I’m keeping this game at 50/50.

PREDICTIONS – MISSOURI
W1 W2 W3 W4 W5 W6 W7 W8 W9 W10 W11 W12 W13
70 65 70 70 70 50 50

11/18/17: LSU (4-2, 1-1 SEC, RV)

Expectations for a Vols win: The Tigers rebounded from a home loss to Troy and weathered a developing storm similar to the one bearing down on Knoxville to beat the Gators by a point. The game was essentially decided on a missed extra point, but LSU did appear to get some things figured out on offense. For now, I’m leaving this at 50/50.

PREDICTIONS – LSU
W1 W2 W3 W4 W5 W6 W7 W8 W9 W10 W11 W12 W13
25 25 25 45 45 50 50

11/25/17: Vanderbilt (3-3, 0-3 SEC, NR)

Expectations for a Vols win: That’s a pretty tough string of four games against ranked opponents for the Commodores, and so I don’t know that it says much about them other than the fact that they are not as good as the teams they just played. So, for now, I’m leaving this one at 50/50, too.

PREDICTIONS – VANDERBILT
W1 W2 W3 W4 W5 W6 W7 W8 W9 W10 W11 W12 W13
72 72 65 55 55 50 50

All of that puts me at 6.1 wins, but if I had a two-headed coin, I’d have 9. 🙂

Here are the community results:

SC AL KY So. MS MO LSU Vandy Total Wins
35 0 33 55 48 38 35 5.44
50 5 55 65 60 40 55 6.3
60 0 69 75 80 65 80 7.29
35 1 50 75 75 45 30 6.11
45 10 51 75 55 35 50 6.21
30 1 50 80 75 30 50 6.16
50 1 45 60 50 45 25 5.76
49 1 51 62 70 30 49 6.12
40 0 50 60 60 40 50 6
60 5 65 80 70 60 60 7
40 2 50 80 75 40 70 6.57
35 0 50 70 60 40 50 6.05
50 5 50 55 50 50 50 6.1
45% 2% 51% 69% 64% 43% 50% 6.24