Tennessee football a home favorite vs. Florida in extremely rare line

They have lost 16 of 17 to the Florida Gators, including five straight. Entering this game, though, Tennessee football is favored. In fact, the Vols are favored by a margin that hasn’t been documented in recent history for them.

WynnBET and FanDuel both have UT as nine and a half point favorite in the game. To a degree, it makes sense. The Vols are ranked No. 11 in the AP Poll and No. 12 in the Coaches Poll with a 3-0 record. Florida, however, comes in No. 20 in he AP Poll and No. 22 in the Coaches Poll.

While Tennessee football has covered the spread in all three games and beaten a ranked team on the road, Florida hasn’t played a road game yet. They just barely beat the South Florida Bulls over the weekend and lost to the Kentucky Wildcats the week before.

That has made everybody forget about their season-opening win over the Utah Utes. Add in the fact that they are playing this game in Knoxville and still going through the growing pains of a first-year head coach in Billy Napier, and everything about this line makes sense.

However, history tells a different story. Rocky Top hasn’t just beaten Florida once in the past 17 years. Gambling databases show the Vols have only been favored five times since Peyton Manning’s last year at UT in 1997: 2002, 2004, 2012, 2014 and 2016. Five and a half was the largest line for any of those.

If you were to track the way the teams were the first seven years they began playing annually before then, it’s a safe bet that 1996 and 1990 would have been the only other years they were favored. None of the years would have had them as a two-score favorite.

As a result, this is an insanely rare line for Tennessee football. Florida has been heavily favored plenty of times in the series, even at the apex of the rivalry. In 2001, they were 18-point favorites at home despite both teams being in the top five, and the Vols won that day in The Swamp 34-32.

Still, nobody makes the Vols a heavy favorite against the Gators. Now, they are 2-3 when favored dating back to 1997, which is a .400 winning percentage. That’s better than their overall winning percentage of .200 since that time with a 5-20 record.

Taking that into account, this is probably good news for Tennessee football, as nobody still truly believes they can win this game. With College GameDay in the house, though, and the Smokey Greys coming in, the Vols are giving their fans plenty of reason to be excited.