Rocky Top Talk, a Tennessee Volunteers community

Now the Tennessee Volunteers are a hard team to figure out. In all honesty, the team was lucky to be playing for the SEC title last year. The race in the East is between UT, UF, and UGA every year, and that triad of teams beat each other. Florida blasted Tennessee, which in turn the Volunteers did the same to Georgia, and then Georgia beats Florida to keep Tennessee right in the race. Along with the beat down from Florida, there were also blowout losses against Cal and Alabama, and a slew of close games, that only a senior quarterback can get a team through. Fast forward to this season and say goodbye Eric Ainge and hello to Jonathan Crompton and new offensive coordinator Dave Clawson. Last year’s squad was out gained by an average of 32.7 yards per game, and a new quarterback and coordinator are supposed to fix that? Crompton and Clawson also do not have the luxury of settling in to their respective roles because of the early season schedule which include UCLA, Florida, and Auburn. This team can’t get off to the same 2-2 start as last year. The defense should be good after ending the season in great fashion, but do lose last year’s best player Jerod Mayo and talented safety Jonathan Hefney.