Tennessee football continues to get love, even if its cautious. CBS Analyst Gary Danielson recently picked the Volunteers to win the SEC East.
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A guy who will likely be calling at least four Tennessee football games this year has picked the Vols to win the SEC East, falling in line with the rest of the country and their expectations surrounding Butch Jones’s program.
Gary Danielson, who is the CBS color commentator and Verne Lundquist’s partner in calling the SEC Game of the Week during the college football season, just did an interview with Gridiron Now and said the Vols would win the division.
However, his prediction on the Vols winning the East was much more heavily based on how weak the rest of the division is. And although he predicted them, he gave them faint praise.
Here is how he described them.
"“I think they will win the East, but in order to do it, they will have to win a couple of tight games, which is something they had trouble with a year ago. They will probably show up in Atlanta (for the SEC championship game) and be outmanned (by the West Division champ).”"
Of course, Danielson called to of the close games the Vols lost last year, including the late fourth-quarter drive they allowed against the eventual national champion Alabama Crimson Tide and the epic fourth-quarter collapse they had against the Florida Gators.
And he is right. It’s no secret that Tennessee has to close the tight games. What Danielson may miss, however, is that the Vols were extremely young, and he also called one of the close wins they pulled off last year against the Georgia Bulldogs, which was an epic comeback.
Combine that with a close win against the South Carolina Gamecocks and Jones’s overall success throughout his career in close games, and the Vols are clearly in much better position to win close games this year than he might think.
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But they have to prove it on the field.