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Many called for Tennessee to have somewhat of a transitional year in 2017, considering the mass exodus of so many talented players to the NFL and a nearly complete overhaul of the assistant coaching staff during the offseason.
Despite those facts, many others were optimistic that the program Butch Jones had built up during his four seasons in Knoxville leading up to 2017 would be enough to lay a solid foundation to keep the program afloat while the inexperienced players on the roster had a chance to mature before SEC play.
If you haven’t been paying attention to Tennessee football this season, let’s just say things did not work out that way.
This stat provided by Josh Ward of WNML in Knoxville does a great job of showing how quickly things fell apart in Knoxville and what the perception Tennessee football has in the eyes of the betting public heading into what used to be the best rivalry in the SEC.
Tennessee was favored by 35.5 points against Indiana State on Sept. 9. @TwitVI has a consensus spread of Alabama -36 vs. Tennessee.
— Josh Ward (@Josh_Ward) October 19, 2017
What Indiana State is to Tennessee, a paycheck cupcake game, the Vols essentially are for mighty Alabama these days. That pretty much says it all for the UT program in Year 5 of the Butch Jones era.
A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Michael Wayne Bratton oversees the news coverage for Saturday Down South. Michael previously worked for FOX Sports and NFL.com
