Preview from Rocky Top...

Smokey

For some schools, winning the National Championship is exciting and then becomes a kind of burden moving forward, leaving no success acceptable once the mountaintop has been experienced.  I'm thinking of NC State in men's basketball and Tennessee in football.

Philip Fulmer won the title in 1998.  You think a guy like that would be set for life in Knoxville, but the reign ended in 2008 at 5-7.  Entering the wilderness, Derek Dooley, Butch Jones, Lane Kiffen and Jeremy Pruitt have prowled the sidelines, with 7 winning seasons in the next 12, no 10 win seasons, two interim coaches, and a lot of disappointment.

Last year was a good example.  Off to a decent start, Tennessee lost 8 of its last 9 to finish 3-7.  They held onto Pruitt (Nick Saban coaching tree) until January when recruiting violations were "discovered" and he was fired.  Late to get a coach, they dipped into UCF to get Josh Heupel.

Installing the Clawfense

It was a rough off-season.  They led the P5 world in losing 25 players to the transfer portal.  In fact, they aren't in a dissimilar position to BG.  The Vols have the least experienced team in their conference, are coming off a disastrous season and looking forward to having nowhere to go but up.  In fact, they are ranked as #126 in experience and BG is ranked as #125.

They are picked to be #6 in their division of the SEC, ahead of only Vanderbilt.  Four of their position groups are ranked by Phil Steele as last in the SEC and only a couple are in the single digits.  

And they are 35 point favorites over BG and ESPN gives the Vols a 97% chance of winning the game.

Looking at the pre-season all-SEC teams, they place four players.  LT Cade Mays on the 3rd team, KR Velus Jones, 3rd, and DB Trevon Flowers, 4th team.  Paxton Brooks is the 2nd team punter.  No real football player can be named Paxton.

Heupel's offensive philosophy should look familiar to Falcon fans...since it is described as being very close to the Briles attack with "elements" of Air Raid.  They will play fast with wide splits, which of course is designed to get playmakers in space and force defensive players to tackle in space.

One guy to keep an eye on is Tiyon Evans, who is a JUCO transfer who was the #1 JUCO RB in the country.

Their DC is Tim Banks, who played at CMU and got his start at BG, as a GA and then as the RB and DB Coach under Coach Blackney at BG.  He was defensive coordinator at CMU on the Butch Jones teams.  For the last 5 seasons, he was co-DC at Penn State.  He runs a 4-2-5 defense designed for today's spread offenses, with few blitzes.  We will see how they align if BG comes out in 12 personnel.

Their special teams are strong, in the upper half of the SEC.

They won the only meeting between the two teams 59-30 in 2015, one of BG's 4 losses that season.

This is the 100th season in Neyland Stadium, the venerable home of the Volunteers.  They are offering a new fan experience, including LED lights and fireworks.

These P5 games are always uphill struggles, and this one might among the highest hills, similar to the 77 put up by Memphis or OSU in the first year of Jinks.

Rocky Top