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Updated projected win totals for the Vols after Charlotte

Joel Hollingsworth

What are Tennessee’s chances for bowl eligibility with three games remaining? It depends on how you view the Vols’ outing against Charlotte, how their past opponents looked this past weekend, and how those three remaining opponents have looked so far. Here’s how it all shakes out for me.

First, I’ve been saying all season that I thought Tennessee’s chances of winning the Charlotte game was somewhere between 90-99%. See the graphic below for proof.

So I was surprised when our Statsy Preview Machine last Thursday spit out a mere three-point prediction for the Vols. I was surprised enough not to embrace it and put my own prediction at 34-17, but the machine coughing that up — along with S&P+ suggesting the Vols wouldn’t cover the Vegas spread — did have the effect of preparing me for a battle no one was really expecting.

And hey, football is weird. It’s a contest, and your team’s performance any given week is a product not only of how good your team is and how well it did that day but also how good its opponent is and how good they played that day. And even though we never really know how to weigh each of those factors any given week, we always seem to jump right to the conclusion that our team is either awesome or terrible regardless of any of the other three factors.

Me, I think Charlotte’s defense might be pretty good, particularly at stopping the run, and for an offense having trouble running the ball, that can cause real problems. So, I don’t know that Saturday really tells us much more about the Vols that we didn’t already know. Still, although it wasn’t cause for writing off the rest of the season, it was cause for some degree of readjustment of expectations.

The other thing that happened that changed things this week was that Missouri beat Florida, which is bad news for Vols fans.

Anyway, here’s how I’ve switched up my expectations after this weekend.

My new expected win total:

I docked the Vols a bit for the performance against Charlotte, so I changed Kentucky and Missouri from 50% to 40%. Kentucky did about as well against Georgia as I expected, but Missouri beating Florida the way they did was a surprise, so I put them ahead of Kentucky. Vanderbilt, who didn’t play, went from 60% to 50%. I’m basically thinking we’ll get one of the next three instead of the two we need, but those other two are close enough to tossups that I think they could go our way.

Use the form below to calculate your expected win total and post it in the comments below the post.

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

Tennessee Volunteers currently

Current record: 4-5 (1-4), 5th in the SEC East

The Vols’ past opponents

West Virginia Mountaineers

Current record: 7-1 (5-1), 1st in Big 12, #7

East Tennessee State Buccaneers

Current record: 8-2 (6-1), 1st in Southern

UTEP Miners

Current record: 1-8 (1-4), 6th in C-USA – West

Florida Gators

Current record: 6-3 (4-3), 3rd in SEC – East, #19

Georgia Bulldogs

Current record: 8-1 (6-1), 1st in SEC – East, #5

Auburn Tigers

Current record: 6-3 (3-3), 3rd in SEC – West

Alabama Crimson Tide

Current record: 9-0 (6-0), 1st in SEC – West, #1

South Carolina Gamecocks

Current record: 5-3 (4-3), 3rd in SEC – East

Charlotte 49ers

Current record: 4-5 (3-2), 3rd in C-USA – East

The Vols’ future opponents

Kentucky Wildcats

Current record: 7-2 (5-2), 2nd in SEC – East, #12

Missouri Tigers

Current record: 5-4 (1-4), 5th in SEC – East

Vanderbilt Commodores

Current record: 4-5 (1-4), 5th in SEC – East

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