If you’re tired of the Tennessee hype machine, have a little patience and ride it out. Because once this season starts, it won’t take long to determine if Butch Jones’ Volunteers deserved all that hype.

Their five toughest games of the season all fall before their bye week on Oct. 22. Those matchups are a neutral-site game against Virginia Tech, home games against Florida and Alabama and back-to-back trips to Georgia and Texas A&M.

Talk about a front-loaded slate. Tennessee had a similarly lopsided schedule last year, when it went 3-4 in its first seven games before winning out to finish 9-4.

Meanwhile, the second half of the Volunteers’ slate is not nearly as challenging. In fact, their three-game SEC stretch against Kentucky, Missouri and Vanderbilt from Nov. 12-26 is arguably the conference’s easiest in 2016.

We won’t debate whether having a front-loaded slate is good or bad for a team. What piqued our curiosity was whether any other SEC team’s 2016 schedule was as lopsided as Tennessee’s.

Arkansas

The Razorbacks’ first five games in 2016 might be the conference’s most reasonable matchups. Three of them — against Louisiana Tech, Texas State, and Alcorn State — are at home. Arkansas does have to travel to TCU in Week 2 and has a neutral-site game against Texas A&M in Week 4, but the Horned Frogs are expected to be in the bottom half of the Top 25, so maybe the Hogs can potentially pull off an upset in Fort Worth.

Florida

The Gators might have the easiest opening three games of any SEC team. Over the first three weeks of the season, Florida faces UMass, Kentucky and North Texas — all at home.

But after that North Texas matchup, the Gators have seven straight SEC games, starting with a Sept. 24 visit to Tennessee. It’s a shame this contest is so early, but if the Volunteers somehow manage to struggle this season, Florida’s Oct. 29 meeting with Georgia might have even bigger division ramifications for both teams than it already does.

Kentucky

The Wildcats’ opening three games aren’t the hardest in the world, but they aren’t the easiest, either. After opening its season at home against Southern Miss, Kentucky goes to Gainesville to take on Florida, then plays host to New Mexico State.

After its game against the Aggies, Kentucky’s next seven matchups are SEC games. The Wildcats don’t get a breather until their next-to-last game of the season against Austin Peay.

Missouri

With a new head coach in Barry Odom and an offensive coordinator in Josh Heupel charged with improving one of the worst attacks in the country last year, the Tigers face an uphill climb back to the top of the SEC East. As challenging as the post-Gary Pinkel era might be, Missouri gets a break with this three-game run from Oct. 29 to Nov. 12 — vs. Kentucky, at South Carolina, vs. Vanderbilt.

South Carolina

The Gamecocks don’t end their season like Tennessee does, but the first half of their schedule appears quite favorable. Will Muschamp starts his stint as South Carolina’s coach with games against Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, East Carolina and Kentucky.

The only bad part about that season-opening, four-game stretch is that all the SEC games are on the road, which is the least the Gamecocks should expect against those rebuilding teams. The second half of South Carolina’s schedule isn’t bad either, with three of its games coming against UMass, Missouri and Western Carolina.

The only problem is, even with its very reasonable 2016 slate, South Carolina isn’t expected to contend for the SEC East title — at least not yet. Maybe Muschamp and the Gamecocks can give Florida, Georgia and Tennessee the impression that the rebuilding project in Columbia is ahead of schedule.