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Win totals were released by Vegas sportsbook operator CG Technologies over the weekend. They are not big fans of the Volunteers football program in 2017.
The total has been set at 7.5 wins.
That’s about where I thought they would land. It’s a fair estimate. You have to figure that the Vols have three “gimme” games on the schedule with Indiana State, Southern Miss and UMass. Obviously anything can happen, as we almost (should have) seen with Appalachian State last season.
After that, you’ve got the teams you are supposed to beat — Georgia Tech, South Carolina, Vanderbilt, Kentucky and Missouri. I’m not putting any of these in the win column yet, but the Vols should be favored in these games. Whether or not they can finish the job is a different story. My guess is that we see them drop a game or two from this group.
Beyond these eight games, Tennessee would have Georgia, Florida, Alabama and LSU left. Couple things here.
- Georgia and Florida are winnable, but I don’t feel as good about those two as I did last year. I’d guess both are slight favorites over Tennessee.
- Tennessee just isn’t ready to hang with Alabama, plain and simple.
- We don’t really know what LSU is going to bring to the table this year, but we know they are going to have some of the best talent in the nation. For reference, the same book has LSU at 9 wins for this season. The good news here is that the Vols are catching LSU late on the schedule, where they’ve seemed to falter in recent years.
By this estimate, the SEC East would play out like this.
- Florida/Georgia (8)
- Georgia/Florida (8)
- Tennessee (7.5)
- Missouri (6.5)
- Kentucky (6)
- South Carolina (5.5)
(Vanderbilt was not listed)
I think Tennessee finds their way to seven wins, but getting to eight could be difficult. I’d feel a lot better about eight if the Vols go ahead and beat Georgia Tech (6.5 projected wins) on that opening Monday night game. Vanderbilt, Missouri and South Carolina could certainly play spoiler once again, though.