The Tennessee Volunteers have a new head coach in Derek Dooley and a lot of work to do to be competitive in NCAA online betting this season. The Volunteers are 70-1 to win the national championship this season but considering they are in the SEC and in rebuilding mode, those college football betting odds are way too low. NCAA online betting statistics indicated that the Volunteers were 7-6 both straight up and against the spread last season. They will be lucky to be that good this season. The Vols open up with Tennessee Martin on September 4th and they should win that contest.
It might be one of their rare wins. They host a very good Oregon team in Week 2 and Florida in Week 3. They will likely lose those two games. They host UAB in Week 4 in game they must win. They then go to LSU, Georgia, host Alabama and go to South Carolina in the following four games. They probably won’t win any of those games. They finish up with games against Memphis, Mississippi, Vanderbilt and Kentucky. They might need to win all four of those games to make a bowl game and that seems unlikely.
The Volunteers are going to struggle this season. The question is how much. Even a winning season might be too much to ask from the Vols in 2010. They lost their starting quarterback Nick Stephens who transferred in the spring. They will be going with Matt Simms who is a JC transfer. He is the son of former Super Bowl MVP Phil Simms. The running game doesn’t look very strong either. It will be up to Tauren Pool or David Oku. The receiving corps looks good but it may not matter if they can’t get the ball. Luke Stocker is a very good tight end and he could have a solid season.
The Vols don’t look that great on defense and even the secondary will be weaker now that Eric Berry is gone. They do have Janzen Jackson but he is not going to be able to do it by himself. The special teams are just average and the kicking game doesn’t look that strong.
The Vols are going to be underdogs a lot in 2010 and Dooley has his work cut out for him this season at Tennessee.