SEC Game of the Week – Tennessee Volunteers vs. #6 Georgia Bulldogs

The Tennessee Volunteers travel to Athens, Georgia this Saturday to take on Mark Richt’s high powered Georgia Bulldogs.  America’s Bookie has Georgia as a 13 ½ point favorite at home and the total has been set at 57 ½. Georgia has scored over 40 points in all 4 of their games this season and it will be tough for Tennessee to slow them down.

Mark Richt has been somewhat vague when asked about the status of his 2 defensive stars, Bacarri Rambo and Alec Ogletree.  He is teasing the public by saying he will figure it out in the pregame warm-ups.  It would be great to have them back in the lineup for the Bulldogs but it is going to be tough for the volunteers to keep up either way.  Tennessee’s biggest task for Saturday will be stopping QB Aaron Murray who is off to a super season so far.  He also has a couple of tough young freshmen running backs in Todd Gurley and Keith Marshall to balance out the offense, which seems to be working very well so far.  I was reading a piece yesterday about the mad preparation that Murray takes going into games.  Coach Richt says he has never had a QB prepare for a game like him and that says a lot considering many of the great players he has coached.

Tennessee beat Akron 47-26 last week after a tough SEC loss to Florida the week before.  The Vols have had a good offense mostly this season but the defense has been quite iffy and prone to give up big plays.  And Georgia is definitely a team that can exploit that as they are used to the big play.  The Vols do have a very solid QB in Tyler Bray, who passed for over 400 yards last week against Akron.  And running back Rajion Neal had a career rushing game of 151 yards.

Although Richt is playing coy several sources claim that Rambo and Ogletree will be back in the lineup and I tend to agree.  This is a big SEC matchup and if the Dawgs win this one they will have some major momentum going.  It should be their stiffest challenge yet but I’m going to bank on the defense being back in tact this week.  It’s a lot of points but Georgia should be up for the challenge.  Take the Bulldogs at home and lay the points.