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Tennessee Vols Could Be Back Quicker than We Thought

By Caleb Calhoun

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This was the trendy mid-major upset pick of the week.

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The Tennessee Vols are supposed to be a couple of years away from being back, and Utah State was supposed to walk in with dark-horse Heisman candidate in quarterback Chuckie Keeton and torch the inexperience Vols defensive line. The Vegas line only had the Vols as a 5-point favorite.

Less than 24 hours later, Utah State talk is done.

It should have been done before the game started. Keeton was returning from injury, and the hype behind him was based on half a season last year. He has never shown himself to be a great quarterback against Power Five competition, mostly racking up stats against mid-major competition throughout his career.

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    • And the questions about Tennessee’s defensive line? It was so bad last year that losing every starter shouldn’t matter.

    Now, with a bunch of freshmen but a veteran quarterback, Butch Jones’s second team appeared ready to show the world that they don’t want to wait another year to be back.

    The unheralded front seven frustrated Keeton all night and rendered the offense essentially useless. Jones was not afraid to immediately use highly recruited freshmen Jalen Hurd and Josh Malone (Hurd had a touchdown run).

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    • The veterans stepped up as well, with Worley making quite a few nice passes in his return after missing half of last year due to injury as well. Marlin Lane had lots of great runs despite only 41 rushing yards. Josh Smith, Jason Croom, Von Pearson, Marquez North, and Pig Howard all showed that Tennessee could be the deepest school in the country when it comes to skill players.

    And on defense, A.J. Johnson showed his veteran leadership on the team at linebacker while sophomore Cameron Sutton lived up to the offseason hype to build off of his great freshman campaign. Both had interceptions.

    So while this team is still very young and rebuilding under Jones, don’t write them off as just a circled win for the ranked teams on the schedule.

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    • That’s not to say the Vols will win a national title, SEC championship, or even the division. They won’t beat Alabama and probably won’t beat Georgia or Oklahoma.

    But they are still Tennessee, and this team still has lots of highly recruited talent, including many of the freshmen. With a less talented team last year Jones scored a win against South Carolina, which turned out to ruin the Gamecocks’ SEC and national title hopes.

    Being an expected upset victim to a mid-major team should have been a kick in the gut to everybody in Knoxville with that in mind.

    There’s not a lot to read into this game. Utah State was highly overrated and should have been beaten easily by Tennessee. But at least it allowed them to remind the world who they are.

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