Mark Wiedmer
Seventh?
The Tennessee Vols football team and $8 million quarterback Nico Iamaleava are picked to finish seventh by the media in the new 16-team Southeastern Conference this autumn?
Did anybody see the Big Orange dismantle a fairly gifted Iowa defense by a 35-0 score in the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl at the close of last season? The Hawkeye defense that entered that game ranked fourth in the nation, giving up but 13 points a game?
And just in case you’ve forgotten, Iamaleava put on a bowl MVP performance in that game by throwing for one touchdown and running for three more.
The team coached by the offensive wizard Josh Heupel is going to finish seventh in the SEC this season? Not to go too far out on a limb here, but when you look at the schedules of Georgia - who’s picked to win the league - and UT, it’s easy to see the Dawgs finishing seventh instead of the Vols.
That’s not a knock on UGA, but a concern that the Bulldogs’ schedule might be too tough to win an SEC no longer split into divisions for the first time since 1991.
Instead, Georgia opens against a dangerous Clemson team inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on Aug. 31, then follows that with treacherous road games at Kentucky (Sept. 14), Alabama (Sept. 28), Texas (Oct. 19) and Ole Miss (Nov. 9).
Alabama, Texas and Ole Miss are all being discussed as possible playoff teams in the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff and while those three games are spread across six weeks, only the Bama game comes following an off-week. The Dawgs will have hosted Auburn and Mississippi State in back-to-back weeks before traveling to Austin. The Ole Miss game follows the always emotional Florida game in Jacksonville.
Not only that, both Clemson and the season-ender against Georgia Tech aren’t cuptakes. They may not be conference games, but they’ll certainly be more physically demanding than the Vols’ non-conference quartet of UT-Chattanooga (No offense, Mocs), North Carolina State, Kent State and Texas-El Paso.
As for the Vols schedule, they travel to Oklahoma and its defensive-minded coach Brent Venables on Sept. 21, visit Arkansas two weeks later, then meet Georgia between the hedges on November 16. A tough schedule to be sure, but not near as tough as UGA’s.
In fact, if Georgia somehow runs the table with that schedule, they ought to just call off the College Football Playoff and reward the Dawgs the title, then hand them a spot in the NFL’s Wildcard Weekend.
It was surely not a coincidence that at last week’s SEC Media Days in Dallas, when he was asked about the schedule, part of Smart’s answer referenced the NFL, because this is a schedule equaled in difficulty only by the NFL.
“As coaches we want to play the best,” Smart said. “People forget that when you’ve spent time in the NFL (Smart coached safeties for the Miami Dolphins in 2006), every week was like that. So when Texas and Oklahoma came into the conference, every schedule was going to get harder. We are excited for the challenge to go to some really tough places.”
Much like the NFL, the SEC is a war of attrition. Is your roster deep enough to survive eight Saturdays in the toughest conference in America, because the starting lineup you start the season with is almost assuredly not the lineup you have to finish the season. Just look at UT two seasons ago when it lost quarterback Hendon Hooker late in the year to injury.
Look at how depleted Alabama’s roster was by the time it faced Georgia in the CFP title game in 2021.
Georgia’s schedule is sure to test its roster depth. Even if it avoids major injuries, the physical and mental fatigue of so many tough tests almost guarantees a letdown at some point. That doesn’t mean the Bulldogs don’t have the firepower, depth and coaching to win a third national title in four years. It just means a lot is stacked against them.
Meanwhile, by the midway point of the season, when Alabama visits Neyland Stadium, Iamaleava could be the most dangerous quarterback in the league, blessed with strong receivers, a top-notch offensive line and the wheels to turn broken plays into heartbreak for opposing defenses.
Said Heupel last week, “Our roster is the deepest that it’s been by far, and inside of this league that’s important as you go through the season. I couldn’t be more excited about going and lining up with this group this fall.”
He later added to that in a radio interview: "Anybody that walks into our facility, walks by our players - I don't care if that's in the weight room, you get to training camp coming up here in a couple of weeks, it's tangible, it's visible, (the late blind entertainment legend) Ray Charles can see it. It's different. It's great competition. Depth is important...the length, athleticism, playmakers, we're really excited."
Given all Heupel’s accomplished in his first three seasons atop Rocky Top, it’s all but impossible to believe the deepest, most experienced roster of his tenure won’t finish better than seventh this season within a 16-team SEC.