Alabama vs. Tennessee Picks

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NCAA Football – Week 8

SEC rivals meet at Neyland Stadium on Saturday night for a little college football betting action, where the Tennessee Volunteers hook up with the No. 1 team in the land, the Alabama Crimson Tide.

The Tide are clearly the best team in the nation, and theoretically, this should just be another bump in the road on the path to the BCS National Championship. There just are no holes on this team. QB AJ McCarron suffered a torn meniscus last week against the Missouri Tigers, but he is expected to give it a go. RB Eddie Lacy also has a bruised hand, but Bama is at least five deep in the backfield full of men that have the potential to be playing in the NFL in the near future, so this won’t be a problem as well if Lacy is limited at all. And then of course, there is the defense, which is set to make life a living hell on yet another foe. Everyone in the SEC knows just how strong this Alabama defense is, and this unit has held a whopping 7.6 points per game over the course of its last 12 games in the SEC dating back all the way through last year.

Tennessee knows that it has to become the first SEC team since the QB Cam Newton led Auburn Tigers to score more than 14 in an SEC game against the Crimson Tide if it wants to have any chance to win this one whatsoever. The Volunteers are a decent team and are better than a 3-3 record suggests. However, there is a real chance that a bowl game will be missed this year, and if that turns out to be the case, it this could be the last six games of the coaching career of Head Coach Derek Dooley. The good news in this one is that this is the best passing game that Alabama likely will face all year long, save for perhaps that of the Texas A&M Aggies here in a few weeks. The Vols are led by QB Tyler Bray, who has a big league arm and might be a first round draft pick this coming year in the NFL Draft. He has thrown for 1,730 yards in just six games, and he has 16 TDs against seven picks in spite of the fact that he really doesn’t have much in the way of talented receivers.

Prediction:

We just can’t only get 20 on our side with Tennessee. The defense isn’t good enough to slow down the Crimson Tide. Tennessee might be the first team to get to 20 on Alabama this year, but that doesn’t mean that it is going to stick within three touchdowns. Look for the Tide to roll right through Rocky Top in the second half when depth and talent really take over. Alabama 44 – Tennessee 20