Georgia and Tennessee is one of the SEC’s premier rivalries, and its latest meeting takes place in Knoxville, Tennessee this Saturday. The Bulldogs are ranked 7th in the country, but will have to fight the crowd noise at Neyland Stadium starting at 3:30 EST. The game will be shown on CBS.
The Tennessee Volunteers fell victim to what many teams do. Between an emotionally draining game and a big rivalry game, they played a scrub team and got caught with their pants down. They did beat UMass, but a 17-13 win at home against an 0-5 team isn’t something to be proud of.
With coach Butch Jones on the hot seat and their SEC fate in the balance, the Volunteers must find a way to score points. They have a promising stud in their backfield, John Kelly, who has a 5.6-yard average and six touchdowns already. He’s also a major force in the passing game. But the Volunteers have few great players to complement him with, only somewhat reliable ones.
And if they can only score 17 on the Minutemen, putting points on Georgia’s defense is going to be a tall order.
The Bulldogs have stars all over the field, from Dominick Sanders in the secondary, to Roquan Smith and Lorenzo Carter in the middle, to Trenton Thompson on the line. They’re all SEC first-team type players. As a unit, they’ve only given up four touchdowns in four games, so it’s safe to say they’ll be a challenge for pretty much any team.
They come into Knoxville as touchdown favorites.
These types of rivalries always seem to breed close games. And this will be no different, at least for a half or so. But when Georgia finally settles down and puts a few scores on the board, this may turn into a boring grind-fest by the Bulldogs.
Their offensive line is more equipped to handle a Tennessee defensive line that’s not as skilled as it was last year with Derek Barnett. That Volunteer front didn’t do all that well against Florida, and wasn’t particularly stout against UMass either. And Georgia Tech had 535 yards (that’s not a typo) rushing against them. So, don’t expect an elite running back like Georgia’s Nick Chubb to be kept at bay.
Chubb will wear them down, and when it’s late 3rd quarter-early 4th quarter, they’re going to unleash change-of-pace back Sony Michel to gash them.
And the Bulldogs aren’t completely one-dimensional either because of QB Jake Fromm, they just haven’t used him much. Bringing Jacob Eason back from injury probably wouldn’t be much of an improvement at this point, as the freshman Fromm has been stable for the Bulldogs. But he hasn’t had to do a whole lot thanks to the running backs and the top-tier defense.
For Tennessee to keep up, they would have to not only find another dimension to their own offense, but would have to reverse their fortunes against the run game, and have Kelly give his best performance yet. That’s a lot to ask.
Neither Quinten Dormady or Jarrett Guarantano are high-caliber SEC starters, and that will show this Saturday.
Georgia is having a nice stretch of 4-1 ATS in their last five road games. While Neyland is one of the hardest road venues to play in, the fans there will also be quickly dejected by a Georgia offense continually chipping away at their defense little-by-little.
Expect this game to disguise itself as a contest for some time, but Georgia will tire Tennessee down by the end and pull away to a 14-point victory.