Tennessee football: Why Vegas has Vols in top 10 for national title chances

Well that was fast. It took one win over a ranked team on the road while staying undefeated, and all of a sudden, Tennessee football’s national title odds have gone through the roof. The Vols may be No. 16 in the AP Poll and No. 15 in the Coaches Poll after beating the Pittsburgh Panthers in overtime Saturday.

However, they are now top 10 among teams with the best national title odds. WynnBET has them tied with the Oklahoma Sooners for No. 7. FanDuel has them at No. 8, directly behind Oklahoma. On both sites, their odds are set at +6000 and shockingly third among all SEC teams.

In addition to OU, only the Georgia Bulldogs, Alabama Crimson Tide, Ohio State Buckeyes, Clemson Tigers, USC Trojans and Michigan Wolverines are ahead of them. Literally every team ahead of Tennessee football outside of USC has been to the College Football Playoff at least once in the past three years.

Yes, a team two years removed from 3-7, undergoing a coaching change and losing over two dozen players to transfer is that high up in the national title odds. So what’s behind this? How did the Vols’ chances increase so significantly?

Well, you could start with the game itself. On paper, the Vols beat a Power Five team on the road that just beat a Power Five team the week before. More importantly, they did it despite a bunch of ugly errors that aren’t likely to be a part of what they do going forward.

Still, beyond what happened at Pitt, it’s really about how their schedule shakes out. We’ve been saying all offseason they have a legitimate chance at starting the year 5-0, and with the win at Pitt, that’s as true as ever. The only other two Power Five teams they will face in their first five games both already have a loss.

One of those, the Florida Gators, just lost to the Kentucky Wildcats. Both Kentucky and Florida travel to Knoxville this year, Florida doing so in two weeks with a new head coach. The other, the LSU Tigers, do look dangerous, but Tennessee football gets them off a bye, and they still have a first-year head coach as well.

After those first five games, the Alabama Crimson Tide come to town. Sure, that game should be written off at a loss, but with their struggles against the Texas Longhorns, Vegas might be slightly down on Bama. That slight decline is enough to slightly increase Rocky Top’s chances at winning that game.

In fact, that game is why the Vols shot up so high. Winning it will firmly thrust them into the conversation if they start 5-0, but losing won’t knock them out. Let’s say, though, that they do pull off the shocker in that game, as their chances of doing have now increased.

They’ll then host the UT-Martin Skyhawks, so that puts 7-0 on the table, which they have only done once in the past 50-plus years, in their 1998 national championship season. Kentucky follows that, As we mentioned, UT gets them at home after beating them on the road last year.

That puts 8-0 on the table, which outside of 1998, they haven’t done in over 65 years. Of course, then there’s the elephant in the room, and it’s the trip to the Georgia Bulldogs. UGA looks as dominant as ever, and that has actually probably kept the Vols’ title odds from potentially being even higher.

However, this is a shocking turn of events. Tennessee football has jumped right into the conversation, and they honestly have a chance to stay in it when the first College Football Playoff rankings come through. Nobody saw that coming 18 months ago.