48 Hours: Tennessee Vs. Georgia Preview
The No. 1 Vols take on the No. 3 Dawgs in less 48 hours.
Welcome to the Tennessee Volunteers section here at SRM. This is a section of the newsletter where I write about the Tennessee Volunteers. Who would have guessed? In my game recaps I follow a “cut to the chase” style with those words highlighted in bold throughout the piece. I do hope that you enjoy it and add your email below so you never miss an issue. This newsletter is delivered to your inbox, not your doorstep, daily. Happy reading.
I also host a very popular daily national sports podcast called ‘The Chase Thomas Podcast’ that you should very much subscribe to here.
By the time I finish writing this very piece, it will be less than 48 hours until No. 1 Tennessee and No. 3 Georgia go to war between the hedges in Athens. It’s the biggest Tennessee vs. Georgia game of all-time. The defending champs against the unsuspected usurpers. After the dust settled and the cigars went out, it was hard to see a scenario where Tennessee vs. Alabama could be topped. Here is that scenario.
What’s happening in Knoxville right now is special. Tony Vitello’s Tennessee baseball team, similar to Josh Heupel’s football team, ran roughshod over the league and became the hottest thing going college baseball headlined by their homer-all-the-time offense. You’d blink, and Tennessee would be up 5-0 in the bottom of the first inning. Tennessee fans got used to dominating teams for months. We don’t need to go back through what happened in the Super Regionals, but that Vitello team was the perfect prelude to what would follow this fall at Neyland Stadium.
Winning is fun. It’s more fun with fun offense, though. Just ask TCU and Clemson fans who has had more fun watching their team win every game on their calendar this fall. The Horned Frogs’ offense is electric; Clemson’s offense is anything but. Tennessee is the ultimate example of this. We saw this in baseball, where the constant barrage of homers by Jordan Beck, Drew Gilbert, Trey Lipscomb and company made Lindsey Nelson the place to be all spring and into the early part of the summer. It was the confidence, the flair, and the intensity that came with the offensive firepower that made it season no Vol fan should soon forget.
We saw bits and pieces of this last year with the football team. Now, the last time the Vols scored less than 30 points in a football game was the Georgia game a season ago. Last season, the Vols were the only Power-5 team to finish in the top-10 in scoring to not win at least 10 games. (For this reason, I told folks on the podcast all offseason with the return of Hendon Hooker, Cedric Tillman and company I didn’t expect that to happen two years in a row.) They’re going to finish in the top-10 in scoring once again, maybe even No. 1, barring any significant injuries. The same was true for the baseball team two seasons ago, highlighted by that walk-off grand slam by Gilbert to send the Vols to the Super Regionals last summer. You knew the Vols had the right coach, the right nucleus of talent, and could be something special.
The difference with college baseball versus college football, of course, is that the best team rarely wins it all. (The Vols swept Ole Miss in Oxford earlier last season.) “That’s baseball,” as they say. College football is different. The best team almost always wins. Georgia was the best team in the country all last season. They won it. Alabama was the best in 2020. They won it. LSU was the best in 2019. They won it. In college baseball, the last three No. 1 overall seeds haven’t even made it to Omaha.
It’s just different.
The team who was ranked No. 1 in the first CFP ranking since 2014 has made the Playoff six times. Same for No. 2. The No. 3 team has never made the Playoff. Good news for Tennessee. Bad news for Georgia. Starting at No. 1 was the best-case scenario for the Vols. (ESPN’s FPI gives the Vols a better than 60-percent chance they make the Playoff coming into Saturday.) With a close loss, Tennessee drops to, most likely, No. 3 and they flip with the Dawgs. As much as it’d stink to miss out on Atlanta, the Vols would be in a position to steamroll three-straight, dumpster-fire offenses in Missouri, South Carolina and Vanderbilt to close the season. With Tennessee’s strong strength of schedule, would the committee really drop Tenneessee out of the Top-4 without losing again for a potential one-loss Big 12 or PAC-12 champ? I have my doubts.
Of course, if they win, well, then I wonder if Tennessee finds themselves in a 2017 Auburn situation, only without the early-season blemishes. (The Tigers might have been the best team that season after beating both Georgia and Alabama late then having to play UGA again right away in Atlanta with a banged up Kerryon Johnson.)
With a victory on Saturday, there is a scenario where Tennessee would have to beat Alabama and Georgia twice in the same season to win a national championship. With a Tennessee win, Georgia coasts to 11-1 and gets the second SEC spot in the CFP if Tennessee beats Alabama again in Atlanta. With a Tennessee win vs. Georgia but a loss against Alabama, both Tennessee and Alabama would be make the CFP and leave out the Dawgs putting the Vols in a best-of-three situation against Alabama. (Note: whenever two SEC teams have made the CFP, both schools have the CFP final. So, it’s a good bet right now that the final will feature some combination of Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia.)
Only time will tell how all that unfolds, though. What we do know is that the Vols are eight-point dogs in Athens on Saturday. It’s unbelievable that there is a good shot the Vols can beat Alabama and Georgia in the same season in Year 2 of the Heupel era on Rocky Top. They can, though. Tennessee has the No. 2 rush defense in the SEC. Stetson Bennett will have to make big plays deep to win. He won’t be able to make the same mistakes Will Levis made last week that turned into back-breaking interceptions for Kentucky. Two INTs versus Florida didn’t capsize the Dawgs last weekend, but it’d capsize the Dawgs this weekend. The Vols are No. 1 in Turnover Margin in the SEC. With Nolan Smith out, the odds seem good that Hendon Hooker will have the time needed to find Jalin Hyatt on a few deep bombs in this one. Last year the Vols scored 17 on Georgia.
It’s different this year. Alabama has given up 15 total TDs this season, and seven of them came against Tennessee. Georgia’s defense last season was the best I’ve ever seen, maybe the best any of us will ever see in our lifetime. It’s different this year. Tennessee will score. For Georgia to win, Stetson has to play like he did in the National Championship game. He has to better than Hooker. Georgia will need to score more than 41 points like a season ago. Tennessee might have to score 50.
Man, is it Saturday afternoon between the hedges, yet?