I mean, we’re past the midpoint in the season, and they’ve only played one close game in the SEC. Their two wins are against cupcakes, and one went to overtime. We have a solid body of evidence here that doesn’t paint a pretty picture for them.

Their problem seems to be depth. I think they had some of the old UT talent in the starting lineup at the beginning of the year, but their rotations and injury replacements are full of underclassmen. I’m assuming that’s because of player defections caused by the two regime changes, but I’m not really sure.

On the one hand - except for @ LSU - UT has surrendered 31, 41. and 41 in league games; in the 2OT “win” over UAB Blazers, the Vols surrendered 29. Oregon Ducks hung 50 on them.

On the other hand, the Vols played Oregon and Florida tough as nails the first half. I think we have to keep in mind that the Vols have “fallen” down to the level where Carolina has inhabited for years … i.e., with some great players, but shallow across the 2-deep … and its not that we’re so superior all we have to do is take the field. By way of comparison, I think that our 2003-2004-2005 and 2006 squads playing UT’s 2010 schedule would also be sitting at 2-5.

We’re great at home, but we’re in funk too that our coaches must coach us out of. True, I think we’re better than UT position-by-position, and UT is beat down by the debacle at LSU and back-to-back drubbings at Athens and in the Bama rivalry game, but I think Dooley will fire ’em up to beat us - a line in the sand game. He will tell them “Give me the effort you gave against LSU, and you will beat USC.”

If we think because this year we wll roll UT simply because we have a “C” on our helmets and they have a “T” on theirs, then the Vols may well beat us or it goes deep into the fourth. The trick to beat UT, in my mind, is to blow their doors off in the first half a la the Dawgs and Tide; even then, better talent/coaching should win out (e.g., Gators and Ducks).

Just an overwhelming lack of depth and experience. If you look at each of the losses you’d see games where we were very competitive if not in control of the game for much of the first half. The 2nd half collapses is where the lack of depth and experience shows big time.

The roster has essentially been gutted by the coaching changes, academics, discipline issues all happening in big numbers over consecutive years. The 2007 recruiting class was ranked number 3 in the country, less than half of that class is still on campus, and only a handful are contributing at a high level.

This is why there won’t be a lackadaisical performance in this one.

I wonder if we’ll wear black for this one. Our players seem to like those all-garnet jerseys these days. Don’t think we’ve worn anything else at home since we wore those charity camo jerseys against UF.

so last week was a bit of an uptick for the offense in general.