Sportsbook website handicappers have seen little to encourage them about the prospects of the Tennessee Volunteers for the 2010 college football season. Tennessee is 1-2 both straight up and against the spread with their only win against 1-AA Tennessee Martin on opening day.
Bitter Dose of Reality
Tennessee has had to face the stark reality of their new status as an overmatched also ran in the brutally powerful Southeastern Conference. Against Pac 10 favorite Oregon the Volunteers played a good first half but then wilted in a 48-13 sportsbook loss as 10.5-point home dogs. That was followed with a 31-17 loss last week to the Florida Gators as 13.5-point home dogs in their SEC opener. The back-to-back losses and failures to cover against top 10 teams shows just how far this former perennial top ten program has fallen.
Brief Pause This Weekend
This week Tennessee will host Alabama-Birmingham before hitting the road for 4 out of their next 5 games. The Volunteers opened at Sbg global.com as 14-point favorites with an over/under of 51. Kickoff is set for 12:25 PM and the game may be the last real chance for a Volunteer win for the next month.
Dooley Mostly Innocent
While the results for Tennessee have been bad so far Dooley obviously inherited a program at the worst possible time. Tennessee has been in steady decline since the 2004 season when they last won 10 games. The Phil Fulmer regime was finally cut off after the 2008 season but probably two or three years too late as sportsbook website handicappers saw that the program was no longer able to compete consistently against elite SEC programs such as Florida, Alabama, and LSU. To make matters worse Fulmer’s replacement, Lane Kiffin, cut and run after 1 year on the job to take over at USC. Dooley can be criticized for the erratic play of his team this year and for their many mistakes but everyone realized that Tennessee would be outmanned for 2010.
A Full Effort Last Week
One bright spot that sportsbook handicappers can take from last week’s loss to Florida is that Tennessee did not quit like they did the previous week against Oregon and stayed in the game through the later stages of the 4th quarter. Dooley was pleased that his charges kept fighting to the final gun.