Tennessee football: Vols, SEC, top 25 predictions for Week Three of 2019

Chattanooga Mocs at Tennessee Volunteers

TV: SEC Network

Saturday, Sept. 14 at 12 p.m. E.T.; Neyland Stadium; Knoxville, Tenn.

And here we are, back with Tennessee football again. Hey, their play last week at least allowed the game to hit the over, and them failing to cover gave us two gambling points with them. But it was still a heartbreaking loss.

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This team is 0-2 thanks to turnovers, too much youth up front and too many mistakes by Jarrett Guarantano. They did significantly improve from Week One to Week Two, but they’ll be looking to finally correct some of those mistakes on Saturday. To be clear, it won’t be easy. After all, the Vols are mentally shot right now.

Meanwhile, the Chattanooga Mocs may be 1-1 after a loss to Jacksonville State, but they have a returning quarterback in Nick Tiano who is huge at 6’5″ 240 pounds and a potential FCS NFL prospect at quarterback.

Pruitt needs to make sure his team contains Tiano and the passing game with Bryce Nunnelly at receiver as a whole. But what also makes this tricky is that the Mocs have found a running game, and they have defensive guys who can exploit the specific weaknesses the Vols have, particularly up front.

Prediction

The scariest thing about this game is the fact that we’re not sure Tennessee football wins. And if they lose, 0-12 is clearly on the table at that point. So what happens? Well, the Vols survive, and they will in fact pull away. But it will be an ugly game once again, one that has fans in an even bigger panic with the Florida Gators up next on the schedule.