JEFF ALLEN GAME PREVIEW: VIRGINIA TECH at TENNESSEE
As great as Week I in college football was in terms of marquee matchups, Week II features a menu of basically
non-competitive money games where name brand power five conference teams are home as large double-digit
favorites to pad their records versus outmatched smaller schools that most times go home with big losses and
big checks that are essential to keeping their programs going and maintaining their D-I status. Still there are
some games of interest including Virginia Tech and Tennessee, the Hokies in their first real game with a new
head coach and the highly regarded Tennessee Vols who were life and death to win their opener over upstart
Appalachian State. The game opened at Tennessee -10 with the total 52 1/2. Vol and over money has the number
up to Tennessee -11.5 and the high/low now set at 54 1/2. This matchup is now the feature prime time 8:00 PM EST
offering on ABC. Note that this will be considered a neutral field as the game will be played in Bristol, Tennessee
at the Nascar track facility which seats 150,000.
An old coaching adage is that you want to be the guy that follows the guy who took over for the legend. Justin Fuente
has chosen to get right to it by taking over for the iconic Frank Beamer and his 258 wins in Blacksburg. Fuente steps
into a decent situation however as the Tech program has been nothing like the late 90’s and early 2000 clubs that
ruled the ACC with Florida State. Fuentes does have a nice core or 15 starters returning including a 1000 yard back
and a defense bouncing off an off year last year that figures to be much better. The Hokies overcame early jitters to
spank Liberty 36-13 in a game hey trailed 13-10 after giving up a defensive touchdown. It will be much more real
tonight.
Tennessee almost fell victim to App State, nine years to the day that the Mounties went to the Big House in Ann Arbor and beat the Michigan Wolverines. The Vols were lucky to come away with a win after being dominated in the first half be the much physically smaller school and ultimately winning thanks to a controversial recovered fumble in the end one during overtime. With 17 starters back including most of the key cogs of last year’s 9-4 team that finished with five straight wins and mauled Northwestern 45-6 in the Outback Bowl. Butch Jones and Company have been put on notice that they just can’t walk out to Old Rockytop and play. It will be interesting to see how Sr. QB Joshua Dobbs and the rest of the offense react off what can only be termed a poor effort.
In the final years of the Beamer regime, Virginia Tech was a notoriously slow starter early and that was was reflected
in the Hokies 3-6 ATS mark in September over the last three year. Look in Wikipedia under 25-point September non-conference home favorites that win by 18 and Virginia Tech will pop up. That said, the were live dogs the last three years going 6-3 catching points. Fuentes was 14-7 as a dog in his prior stint at Memphis. Tennessee is 15-11 ATS in all games and 10-7 as a favorite while rocking a 3-0 neutral field badge. World Champion Jeff Allen leans to taking the points with VTech and Juco sensation QB Evans but has no official play at this time. Find Jeff on his home site of www.vegasscoresandodds.com for any late breaking information or updates.