Tennessee football vs. WVU: Final predictions for Vols and Mountaineers

3. Will Grier will throw for 300 yards four touchdowns.

Although Tennessee football has the personnel and the match-up advantage to force a few turnovers, they also have the disadvantage in the secondary. And they are facing a team that can exploit that better than anybody.

Vol Nation knows based on 2012 with Sal Sunseri that the secondary struggles the most with the transition to the 3-4 defense. The unit was awful in the spring as well, so it was clear that these guys would struggle.

Add in the fact that they have to start two new cornerbacks and lost their top four guys in the rotation from a year ago, and this is going to be a long year in general. It’s why they have two freshmen competing to start on one side. Things are just that desperate. Going up against West Virginia’s air raid in the first game only makes it that much more brutal.

The Vols are facing a team that returns all of its top playmakers at receiver. On top of that, Grier is a heck of a quarterback when he actually does have time to get rid of the ball. Everybody remembers what he did to UT back in 2015 while playing for the Florida Gators.

The combination of all this means that when he’s not committing turnovers, he’ll be throwing for touchdown passes. So it’s going to be brutal for the UT secondary at different times throughout the day. But the next prediction is a way they can offset that.