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Vegas Odds: Tennessee Vols -20.5 Favorites vs. Bowling Green Falcons

By Caleb Calhoun

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Las Vegas has the Tennessee Vols as -20.5 favorites in Saturday’s match-up against the Bowling Green Falcons in Nashville.

Las Vegas works year-round for football season, but you know that it is really here when official week-to-week betting odds are finally in play. And for the Tennessee Volunteers, odds are pointing to them winning in a blowout Saturday.

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The point spread on Tuesday, according to ESPN, was -20.5 in favor of Tennessee. That line suggests lots of expectations for Tennessee this year.

Keep in mind that this game is played in Nashville, not Knoxville, and despite being a Group of Five team, the Bowling Green Falcons did go 8-6 last year and returns most of the offensive weapons that got the team to that point.

But at the same time, are we really going to consider Nashville any less of a home-field advantage than Knoxville? Also, there is considerable hype behind the Tennessee defense, and the Tennessee offense is going up against a Bowling Green defense that loses everybody and has very low expectations.

Historically, even in these bad years, the Vols have been pretty good since 2010 at running the table against mediocre to bad non-conference competition. In fact, they have done a better job in that regard than Phillip Fulmer did, who always had the occasional hiccup if you look at Memphis in 1996, a bad Notre Dame team in 2004, and Wyoming in 2008.

The recent history combined with the expectations of this year are what suggest a blowout in favor of the Vols if everything goes right.

The 20.5 point spread is fine with us, and it should be a pretty safe bet that the Vols are going to cover that spread.

The only way they don’t is if depth is a lot bigger of an issue than we thought and Bowling Green makes it closer when Butch Jones pulls the starters.

Next: Vols 2015 Football Schedule: Ranking Every Game by Importance

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