Tennessee has lost a program-worst 10 consecutive conference games.

Matt Hayes wrote in his weekly “First and 10” column that “there’s a good chance Tennessee won’t win an SEC game this year, and when it travels to Gainesville to begin league play next season, will have lost 17 consecutive SEC games.”

Our Vols beat writer, Dave Hooker, wasn’t any more optimistic when he went looking for the next win.

Last year, the Vols endured their first 0-8 SEC season. That seemed unthinkable. Is it possible they suffer the same inglorious fate in 2018? Or will the Vols end their streak and win an SEC game in 2018? That’s something we’ve been discussing since the ugly first half of last week’s Florida game.

Connor O’Gara, senior national columnist: Man, I had Tennessee for SEC wins against Kentucky and Vandy before the start of the season. If I was predicting right now, I’d say those are both losses. How could one look at what we’ve seen from the Vols so far and assume that they’ll win an SEC game?

The Florida game was telling. I’m still not entirely sure how you turn the ball over 6 times in a game … at home … against a team that hadn’t won a Power 5 game in nearly a year.

The fact that Tennessee has yet to stay within 4 scores of a Power 5 team probably doesn’t bode well for SEC play. I have less and less confidence that Tyson Helton is going to turn this offense into a capable one by season’s end.

The Vols just don’t have the pieces to win the battle at the line of scrimmage right now. It feels like a team that’s only going to win an SEC game if it can win a 21-17 game against Vandy or something like that.

I realize it’s early and by no means am I selling stock in Jeremy Pruitt. But we’re seeing at places like Florida State, Nebraska, UCLA and others that just being average in Year 1 isn’t always a given. Tennessee certainly isn’t average yet. That’d be a nice upgrade.

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Michael Bratton, news editor: Yes, Tennessee will win an SEC game in 2018. Anyone saying a firm no to this question is suffering from recency bias — and this is coming from the only person I saw all last week picking Florida to win by double digits in Neyland Stadium.

Not only will Tennessee win a league game, they will win at least two.

SEC fans always hit the panic button after a bad loss and talk of Tennessee not winning another league game is simply more of the same in my opinion. How quickly was Ed Orgeron going to be fired after losing to Troy? How bad did Auburn look after losing to LSU? How bad did Florida look after losing to Kentucky? How bad did South Carolina look after losing to Georgia? Etc.

If Tennessee turns the ball over six times in every SEC game, guess what, they will get destroyed, but that’s not going to happen each week. Outside of this murderer’s row the Vols are about to face, the back half of the schedule features several winnable games.

The Vols will win at least two of these November games: home vs. Kentucky and Missouri and closing the season out at Vanderbilt. Kentucky faces Georgia the week before Tennessee; Mizzou has road trips to South Carolina, Alabama and Florida before Tennessee and their season could be derailed by then, and we are already seeing the Vandy train make its annual crash with back-to-back losses.

Go ahead and book it now, Tennessee is winning at least 2 SEC games before the season is done.

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Adam Spencer, SEC reporter: That upcoming schedule is brutal, so don’t expect any SEC wins during the Vols’ next four games. I’m going to say no, simply because I think their best bet, Vanderbilt in Week 13, is a road game.

The Commodores always get up for this game, and with a 2-game winning streak over their in-state rivals, they’ll be eager to keep that going. With all the in-fighting going on in Knoxville right now, who knows what sort of messes coach Jeremy Pruitt will be trying to put out by that point of the season.

I don’t see the Vols having much to play for at that time, as I don’t foresee the Vandy game meaning anything for Tennessee in terms of bowl positioning. In fact, they might enter that Vandy contest with a 3-8 record. Meanwhile, the Commodores could be in search of their sixth win.

How will Vol Nation react to another 0-8 SEC season? It might get ugly, but I think we’re heading that way.

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Chris Wright, executive editor: I was on an island last August, saying Tennessee didn’t have enough talent to make a bowl game. I didn’t expect much, but the Vols were worse than I thought.

I lowered those expectations this season — I picked them sixth in the East — and they’re somehow worse than my meager expectations.

Upsets happen, so I wouldn’t be completely shocked if the Vols won one of their final 3 SEC games.

But that’s assuming Jarrett Guarantano makes it through this upcoming 4-game gauntlet in one piece — hardly a guarantee given how many times he gets hit a game.

Right now? Co-defensive coordinator Chris Rumph was right. It is an ugly baby. Maybe they do teach them to crawl, run and keep people out of their end zone.

Then again, Benny Snell might run for 300 yards against that defense. He ran for 180 and 3 scores last year.

Drew Lock might throw for 500. He barely worked up a sweat in a 50-17 blowout last year.

Of course Tennessee might beat Vanderbilt. But you probably thought that in 2017. And 2016. Kyle Shurmur is a better quarterback than Guarantano and will try to become the first ‘Dore to topple Tennessee three times.

Make no mistake: That game has turned into his personal showcase.

Shurmur threw for a career-high 416 yards and 2 TDs in 2016. He followed up with 283 yards and 4 TDs in 2017. If he played the Vols every week, you’d be convinced that he, not Lock, is a first-rounder.

All things being equal, best team wins and all that, I think the Vols’ SEC losing streak stretches into 2019.

At that point, we’ll be wondering whether they’ll reach Vandy’s post-expansion SEC record of 23 consecutive conference losses.