You can't judge this season on wins. Pruitt beat a good Auburn team in year 1 and how did he turn out? I would focus on how they play in the first half and do they continue to battle into the later part of the game. There are 3 guaranteed wins on this schedule, that's it. People talk of beating Pitt/Mizzou/SC/Vandy and they certainly could win those games, but I'd say it's unlikely.
So you are saying that Vandy and USCe with less talent and new coaches are unlikely wins for UT? You know what the QB situation is at both of those schools, right? You know that neither of their coaches have been HC's previously and Beamer hasn't even been a coordinator, right? I know you probably tell yourself that you are "just being realistic"... but you're not. Not even close.
MU is 2nd year in with a good coach but a roster that has serious talent holes because Odom just didn't find those "diamonds in the rough" like they got before. You didn't mention UK but they just lost pretty much all of their best players off a team that has lost 11 games over the past two seasons. If you lose that many really good players off a team that's already mediocre... what's left?
People underplay Pitt because of their conference, but that's a stable program with an experienced coach who will know what he wants to do to win just as we are getting our feet wet.
No. You are overestimating them in spite of the competition they play. They are a middling ACC program. No problem. Doesn't mean they can't win games or even this game. What it means is that they have some very talented players in spots. Their QB is a good QB. But then they have whole position groups where their best players aren't the kinds of guys who EVER start for any SEC team except maybe Vandy.
Mizzoul looked really good to end the season last year so they might continue.
Really? Who told you that... because you certainly didn't research it yourself. I'm repeating myself but you obviously have not read the discussions and refutations of the stuff you seem to believe. MU's last 5 games were a 17-10 win over USCe (the lowest points allowed by USCe all year), a blowout of Vandy, a 50-48 win over a pretty bad Arkansas team, and then blowout losses to UGA and MSU. Even if you think two close wins over two really bad teams is "really good"... how can two blowout losses to end the season be "really good"?
South Carolina is tough because they are circling this game as one of the most important games to judge Beamer. They will really want to win.
Oh, they "want to win" so that changes the reality of their roster and Beamer's inexperience? This somehow makes it "unlikely" that UT beats them?
And for Vandy we are going to be their super bowl and Lea will want nothing more than to start his career with a win.
And how does this exactly make this game anything more or less than an absolute blowout win for UT? UT was downright awful last year. Worse squandering of talent I think I've seen at UT... and that's saying something. But even at that and with JG at QB... the Vols scored more points vs Vandy than Mizzou and beat the absolute snot out of them. This is another case where they simply don't have the talent unless UT somehow hands them the game.
It's just going to be tough. Given that I expect UT to self-impose a bowl ban, the wins won't matter much anyway. Watch the game, evaluate the coaches and players, and the score is just going to be a number this year.
Actually teams with bowl bans have a tendency to make each game a "bowl game" of sorts. However UT's leadership would be absolutely STUPID to accept any kind of ban from the NCAA. In case you haven't read, the NCAA is on life support. They can't push anyone and need any friend they can find. There's a reasonably good chance that the NCAA as a governing body for FBS football will not exist in 5 years. UT has NO REASON to accept any penalty from them.
