Tennessee beat writer is “boldly predicting the Vols to finish ahead of Kentucky and Vanderbilt in the SEC East”.
As sad sounding as that is, you can’t argue with his rationale for using the word bold.
… although Kentucky has a bountiful supply of starters returning from a team that beat UT last season, and Vanderbilt has won four of its past six games against Tennessee.
In Knoxville, they welcome their new lowered expectations overlords, at least for a few weeks.
Get The Picture 
When you’ve lost every prior game against every member of the conference, I guess beating UK and Vandy is a big deal.
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I compare UT to where UGA was when Richt came in. We finally had figured out that our beloved Dawgs were not the Dawgs of the early 80’s. 20 years later, they are figuring out that UT of the 90’s are not where they think they are. But it is a different era, where you do not get 5 years to turn it around – you get 2 – maybe 3. I think he’s a DC for an middle tier ACC school in 2021. Kirby has too big of a jump for a coach like this. The goes through Athens now – it’s just going to take another year or 2 for UF and UT to completely get the picture.
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They are more where we were when Goff was fired. Donnan came in and restored things to where we routinely beat bad teams, UT is not doing that right now.
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And even Geoff never went oh-fer in SEC play.
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Their roster talent is not near as bad as some think. I can see some of the Georgia comparisons you make. To me, they need to get a difference maker at QB…much like the dawgs did. Said before and I will say again, Fromm to me was the biggest difference in our success last season. No way would we have been in the title game without the change at QB imo. We had a talented roster, just needed a change at QB. Who knows what will happen in Knoxville…personally, I hope they shut the place down. Here is a look at their talent…probably not too far off from where UGA was when Smart came in:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/roster-talent-rankings-college-football-teams-with-the-best-players-in-2018/amp/
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You think Tennessee is in as good a shape as we were at the end of Richt’s tenure? Good Lord,you’re generous.
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I agree with the above poster comparing their situation to UGA at the end of Goff. But I think they have less talent where it matters. Donnan inherited some good players and signed Champ and some other top players his first season and at least per the recruiting rankings Pruitt did not do as well his first signing class. Donnan went 10-2 his second year with upperclassmen who were recruited by Goff. I don’t foresee that taking place with UT and as mentioned before I doubt that anyone gets 4-5 years in the SEC these days especially if UGA and Alabama, two teams they play every year continue to stay at the top.
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I don’t mean to be snarky, to anyone, but I’m not comfortable thinking our team is “at the top with Alabama”. Last season was special and everything points to a bright future for sure, but it hasn’t happened yet. College football has a history of being “not what the experts think”.
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I get your point but I saw a breakdown of talent by the recruiting services. The 2018 total rosters are very close. Uga’s roster was like 68% four or 5 stars and Bama was 69.5%. Georgia has 1 more 5 Star than Bama and Bama has 3 more 4 stars. Bama’s roster is a year ahead of UGA as Bama’s strongest class by the rankings was 2017 and UGA’s was 2018. Granted the services have their problems but I can’t think of any other way to get a true comparison based on the available data.
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I get what 92 is saying and agree, you got to prove on the field before you can say and mean it. I also get what you are saying, there is hardly any difference in the overall talent level (rankings). But that also depends on how that talent develops. The future is brighter than I ever remember it.
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Apples and oranges. The attrition at UT was a next level exodus. You can count on your hand the players left from the two best classes in 14 and 15. Their roster is VERY thin on talent right now though I am sure that will addressed pretty quickly by Pruitt.
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Not sure where the roster talent was ranked when Smart came in, probably not too far off from Tennessee’s (per link above)…..if you believe in that sorta thing (talent rankings). But to me, one difference I see nobody talking about is the difference in the previous coaches at both schools.
The players at Georgia were still playing for Richt imo, at Tennessee …it looked to me as if they gave up and didn’t respect him. From that standpoint, it will be a bigger uphill battle at Tennessee (changing mindset). My point still stands on the QB
JMO, we will soon see.
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Vandy, Kentucky, Tennessee….basketball schools.
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EvenUT has no where go but up. But not this year!
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