Tennessee football picked third in East by another sports website
Where will the Tennessee football Volunteers finish in the Southeastern Conference Eastern Division?
It’s been a foregone conclusion that Tennessee football won’t finish ahead of the Florida Gators or the Georgia Bulldogs in the SEC East this year. Even if the Vols upset one of those teams, nobody believes Jeremy Pruitt’s third team is at that level yet.
Because of that, finishing third in the division would make for a successful season on Rocky Top, and that’s what another sports website is picking. Sporting News’ preseason SEC predictions had UT at No. 3, just ahead of the Kentucky Wildcats and one spot behind Florida.
The overall projected standings for the division were the Vanderbilt Commodores at No. 7, the Missouri Tigers at No. 6, the South Carolina Gamecocks at No. 5, Kentucky at No. 4, Tennessee football at No. 3, Florida at No. 2 and Georgia at No. 1. Georgia was projected to face the Alabama Crimson Tide in the SEC Championship.
In the West, behind Alabama came the Auburn Tigers at No. 2, the LSU Tigers at No. 3, the Texas A&M Aggies at No. 4, the Ole Mis Rebels at No. 5, the Mississippi State Bulldogs at No. 6 and the Arkansas Razorbacks at No. 7. Alabama was picked to beat Georgia in the title game.
This projected breakdown is what many expect of Rocky Top, but things are a bit tricky because of the fact that they have South Carolina on the road and Kentucky could be tougher than expected. However, at the same time, they have Florida at home.
A difficult part of this is their inter-divisional schedule. Initially, the Vols were slated to play the two projected division champions, Alabama and Georgia, along with the two projected last-place finishers, Vanderbilt and Arkansas. Adding Auburn and Texas A&M, however, gives them the projected second and fourth place finishers from the west on this site.
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Obviously, this all means that Tennessee football has a brutal road and, no matter what, will have to earn their third place finish. It’s easy to see why finishing higher seems out of the realm of possibilities for now.