Well, that is quite the vote of confidence from the oddsmakers.
The Tennessee Volunteers have had a Week 2 road date at Georgia Tech circled for quite a while on the calendar. The Vols’ biggest non-conference game, it’s one that could be a true swing game to the season for the Big Orange. It’s one that some have circled as interesting and a true potential challenge for Josh Heupel.
But Vegas made a pretty strong statement about the game after the Week 1 results unfolded for both teams. Tennessee opens
as a 13.5-point road favorite against the Yellow Jackets.
That’s a very big number, and higher than I thought it would be.
I have to wonder how much of that came from the Yellow Jackets’ late-game blunder on Thursday against Colorado. Tech led 10-7 and had the ball deep inside Colorado territory first-and-10 with two minutes left. They lost 14-13 on a blocked field goal at the gun in a truly insane final two minutes of the game. But they led for the vast majority of the game and really gave that game away.
Tennessee, of course, made mincemeat out of Furman, and while encouraging, there were still some obvious shortcomings for Tennessee at times during the game, including the offensive line in the run game early on. Still, there was a ton of good to go on as well. How will that performance translate over against Georgia Tech? The Buffaloes ran for over 180 yards against Tech. Tennessee should be able to hammer Tech up front and
Tech also ran for just 51 yards against what many thought was an undersized Buffaloes team. Tennessee’s defensive front was completely dominant yesterday against Furman. Again, Furman, but that seems to be a potential strength in favor of Tennessee there.
I think, perhaps to some small degree, the Week 1 results perhaps shifted the lines a tad, and that’s not too surprising. That’ll happen. But it’s still a lot to lay on the road in the non-conference.
If Tennessee can go into Bobby Dodd Stadium and dominate, then that would be a terrific early sign for this team with Texas to follow two weeks later.
