Tennessee squarely in the race to win SEC East, according to ESPN FPI
Tennessee was virtually all but left for dead after its loss to South Carolina.
Sitting at 5-3 (with a 2-3 conference record), it appeared as if the creamsicle magic had run out on Butch Jones and the Vols. Injuries continue to mount, and Joshua Dobbs has yet to play with any semblance of consistency. Rival Florida also looked primed to run away with the East Division.
However, one week can change things considerably.
A UT win — coupled with a Florida loss versus Arkansas — completely flipped the Vols’ prospects to reach Atlanta in the title game. According to ESPN’s Football Power Index, things have changed dramatically:
Last Monday Florida was a heavy favorite to win the SEC East.
Today, Tennessee is right back in the picture. pic.twitter.com/HmQxtJL7pW
— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) November 7, 2016
Tennessee has a rather manageable remainder of its schedule — with contests versus Kentucky, Missouri, and Vanderbilt (on the road).
On the other side of the coin, Florida will take on South Carolina at home — followed by road games at LSU and Florida State. The Gators will also be without starting signal-caller Luke Del Rio for an unspecified amount of time. Like Tennessee, Florida has been ravaged by injury.
Should the Vols win out, and the Gators drop one of their two conference games, UT will leapfrog UF in the standings within the East (due to holding the tiebreaker).
The SEC East sucks. There is no way around that statement.
Yes it does. No matter who goes to Atlanta, NFL Bama is going to take them behind the shed and whip that ass.
Yes, Bama is pretty good. Auburn is now the only team in the conference with a chance to beat them, and it’s not a very good chance.
Wouldn’t say they necessarily suck…just definitely behind in overall talent. But you have to take in to consideration the injuries that Tenn has had and also Florida, South Carolina and Georgia starting out with new coaches as well.
Sucks?
Nice vocabulary, did you attend public school in Louisiana?
Aside from Alabama the SEC is very balanced this year
Most teams are around .500 in conference
The East has won once against the West all year. That’s not balanced.
i normally pull for LSU but after reading their opinions on here i am grouping all of LSU in the same category as LSUMC (LSU Mangy Cuunt)
The fact that UK is a field goal away from being first in the East says all you need to know. It’s an open race for almost all teams.
And tell me what makes the west better?
Better players.
just about everything unfortunately. how about our collective 1-9 record against them this season with the remaining games Fla @ LSU, Auburn @ UGA, Ark-Mizzou, and Vandy-Ole Miss. Frankly it looks like Vanderbilt is the East team with the best chances of beat a West team this year. And that 1 win so far was UK-Miss State.
Thank goodness we have ESPN’s FPI to tell us these things.
Butch Jones will find some way to f#$@! this up.
And then blame it on injuries.
Or inexperience…
Or the schedule…
Or ….
You see, we Tennesseans need to learn to celebrate the little things. Like, being 6-6 and bowl eligible, or even 8-4 with wins over ridiculously average Florida and Georgia teams and only losing by 39 to Alabama!
The very little things.
If that’s how you feel about this team, it’s probably time to find a new one. The truth is that we’ve improved every year under Butch. It’s not his fault expectations were set too high this year and we played without almost half of our defensive starters during the hardest stretch of the season.
I disagree…the expectations were not set too high, but they were predicated on 2 major factors: 1) that we could keep our talent healthy, and 2) that Butch would learn from his past game management mistakes. Neither of those things have happened, so we find ourselves needing help to win the division. The Carolina loss was inexcusable, plain and simple. That falls squarely on the coaches.
You can’t talk logic to someone who can still support Butch Jones after seeing what an atrocious head coach he is.
This guy was championing Dooley 5 years ago; some people just can’t seem to separate the man and the program. I grew up questioning my leadership; I was taught that to do anything other than that would be to set myself up for mediocrity and settling for someone else dictating my life. I guess that’s comfortable to a lot of people.
We have NOT improved every year under butch. We had a much better team last year than this year. Butch seems to be a good recruiter playing coach. Since 2010, we’ve been going through the worst stretch of Vols football in it’s history. Until we get a coach who can actually coach a football team to win games consistently, we the best we’re going to get is winning the East with 3 losses and getting destroyed by Alabama twice a year.
Mmmmm….Sounds like Volman needs a new team….and some butt cream!
What kind of fairy comment is that?
I bet you’re some old loser who digs 7-5 football right? Get off my leg little dog.