Projecting the finish: three games to go

After another week of sitting on the sofa and watching other teams play, here’s the record of what went down and how it might impact the Vols the rest of the way. As always, you can log your own expectations with the GRT Expected Win Total Machine.

Statsy Preview Machine Current Predictions for the Remainder of the season

A little improvement this week. Let’s see why.

My assessment

My expected win total for this season is 3.1.

Here’s how I’ve tracked this season:

• Preseason: 5.4
• After beating South Carolina: 5.8
• After beating Missouri: No analysis, but would have gone up
• After the loss to Georgia: 5.45
• After the loss to Kentucky: 4.3
• After the loss to Alabama: 4.25
• After the bye week: 4.0
• After the loss to Arkansas: 2.95
• After the A&M postponement bye: 2.95
• After the loss to Auburn: 2.8

Details: Some slight movement this week over last: Florida from 5% to 10%, Texas A&M from 15% to 20%, and Vanderbilt from 60% to 80%.

Here’s a visual:

Tennessee Volunteers currently

Current record: 2-5, 4th in the SEC East

The game against Vanderbilt was bumped in favor of maximizing the odds that all 14 SEC teams can still play 10 games this season. It’s not showing on ESPN’s scheduling page, but it’s probably safe to assume that the plan is to reschedule Vanderbilt for December 19.

The Vols’ future opponents

Florida Gators

Current record: 7-1, 1st in the SEC East

So this is odd. The Gators’ offense was steamrolling teams . . . but has gotten slightly worse against Vanderbilt and Kentucky. It’s not like they’re struggling to score points or anything, it’s just that they don’t look quite as invincible as they did a few short weeks ago. But all of that still only explains a revision of the SPM projected margin from 33 points to 29. I’m bumping this game from 5% to 10%. Woo.

Texas A&M

Current record: 6-1, 2nd in the SEC West

Same. Rolling right along, but only put up 20 points against LSU this week. That result was good for a revision of basically a touchdown to the SPM projected margin, from 29 points to 22. And yes, that’s still three touchdowns. Moving this one from 15% to 20%.

Vanderbilt Commodores

Current record: 0-8, 7th in the SEC East

Um, wonky warning. The Vols went from 16-points in the SPM to only 12 against Vanderbilt in a week where Tennessee didn’t play and Vanderbilt lost to Missouri 41-0. That made me shake my head, so I ran the game through the SPM with all of the detail switched on to see why it was arriving at that conclusion. All it did was wink at me. I’m assigning a shrug emoji to this one and moving the game from 60% to 80% in defiance of the machine.

The Vols’ past opponents

South Carolina Gamecocks

Current record: 2-7, 6th in the SEC East

Looks about right.

Missouri Tigers

Current record: 4-3, 3rd in the SEC East

Georgia

Current record: 6-2, 2nd in the SEC East

Kentucky Wildcats

Current record: 3-6, 4th in the SEC East

Not a terrible result against the Gators. Hopefully, the Vols can do much better, though.

Alabama Crimson Tide

Current record: 8-0, 1st in the SEC West

They did to Auburn pretty much what they did to the Vols.

Arkansas Razorbacks

Current record: 3-5, 6th in the SEC West

Auburn Tigers

Current record: 5-3, 3rd in the SEC West

Don’t forget to submit your own ballot to the GRT Win Total Machine.