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Tennessee’s five-game forecast: mostly gloomy

Joel Hollingsworth
Smokey

Half the league takes the weekend off, Tennessee gets rolled as expected, Southern Miss wins a thriller, Missouri flirts with 70 points again, and LSU continues to improve. What’s it all mean for the Vols the rest of the way?

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

The Vols after Alabama

The Vols lost to Alabama 45-7, barely missing on a historical spread of 37 points, and got outgained 604 yards to 108. The first downs race was 35-7. Tennessee would have barely won with a score of 49-45 if you gave Tennessee seven points for a first down and Alabama seven points for a touchdown. The offense looked inept once again, and although it didn’t feel like the defense was terrible, it still gave up 600 yards and 45 points.

And yet, I don’t know that any of that tells us anything that we didn’t already know. Alabama just magnified the team’s warts and shined a national spotlight on them. It’s embarrassing, but it’s not like it was a well-kept secret or anything.

So, I’m actually not feeling any worse about the Vols themselves after this weekend. There may actually be some raw material to work with the rest of the way . . . but I’m not ready to go anywhere in that direction yet, either. So, status quo this week.

The Vols’ future opponents

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

Expectations for a Vols win: Kentucky’s offense crossed midfield only three times. Still, I’m keeping this one at 50/50.

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

11/4/17: Southern Miss (5-2, 3-1 C-USA, NR)

Expectations for a Vols win: Southern Miss had to stage a comeback to get the win against LA Tech. They didn’t make it 27-19 until there was 1:23 left, and then they needed to recover an onside kick, score again, and get a two-point conversion to get it to overtime. The craziness didn’t stop there, as both teams threw an interception on their respective possessions in the first overtime. Credit to Southern Miss for all of that and for finally getting over the top in the second overtime to pull off the dramatic win. All of that said, I’m keeping this one at 50/50.

PREDICTIONS – SOUTHERN MISS
W1 W2 W3 W4 W5 W6 W7 W8 W9 W10 W11 W12 W13
90 85 80 80 70 55 55 50 50

11/11/17: Missouri (2-5, 0-4 SEC, NR)

Expectations for a Vols win: Oh, good. Missouri is finding itself just in time. Or maybe they just played actual potatoes this weekend. I don’t know. Regardless, they can put up points. Sometimes. Other times not. So, I’m giving them 50 for putting up a lot of points sometimes and taking away 50 for sometimes not being very good at all.

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

11/18/17: LSU (6-2, 3-1 SEC, #24)

Expectations for a Vols win: Oh, good. LSU is rolling again, too. Fantastic. Derrius Guice ran for 276 yards himself. I moved this to 30% last week, and I’m moving it even further this week, to 25%.

PREDICTIONS – LSU
W1 W2 W3 W4 W5 W6 W7 W8 W9 W10 W11 W12 W13
25 25 25 45 45 50 50 30 25

11/25/17: Vanderbilt (3-4, 0-4 SEC, NR)

Expectations for a Vols win: They didn’t play this week, so I’m keeping this a 50/50 game.

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

All of that puts me at 5.25 wins. Use this form to get your own calculation:

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The Vols’ past opponents

Georgia Tech (4-2, 3-1 ACC, RV)

The Yellow Jackets are still one play and one point away from being undefeated. That Clemson game this week could be entertaining.

Indiana State (0-7, 0-4 MVFC, NR)

Florida (3-3, 3-2 SEC, NR)

UMass (1-6, 0-0 IND, NR)

Georgia (7-0, 4-0 SEC, #3)

South Carolina (5-2, 3-2 SEC, RV)

Alabama (8-0, 5-0 SEC, #1)

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