The Pregame Blogle: Auburn at Tennessee

Auburn is 3-1 and heading to Knoxville to take on the 3-1 Volunteers, who boast a #17 ranking and wins over Furman, Georgia Tech, and Kennesaw State.

🙂 HOW I’M FEELING

I’m not necessarily scared of Tennessee’s football team in any way. I’m just worried about the first road trip of the season. It isn’t the first game we’ve played outside of Jordan-Hare, but there will be a few more Tennessee fans than the 100 Baylor fans in Atlanta.

🤷 WHAT WE ACTUALLY KNOW

We know that both teams’ weaknesses are their offensive lines. Tennessee has a highly touted freshman QB who didn’t look highly touted against Texas. Tennessee fans are really down on their offense, so that’s good to hear.

👀 WHAT I WANT TO SEE

I want to see Auburn score points on its first drive of the game. Tennessee has done so in every game this season, so I want to see that not happen. A quick 3-and-out in exchange for a home-team score is never good for the visiting team.

🥱 THE STORYLINE I’M ALREADY TIRED OF

Auburn hasn’t seen a stadium like Neyland yet. I’ve been to Neyland twice. Yes, both were in pretty good years for Auburn (2004, 2013), but I was never impressed with that old place. They’ve also had some pretty bad losing streaks in the SEC recently. It isn’t that big; it just has a lot of tiny seats to squeeze as many people in as possible. It’s seen many losses despite how excited they want to seem. Like last week.

🦅 RANDOM OPPONENT THING

I’ve already given you a few quirky Tennessee things, but here’s a free one:

“Rocky Top” isn’t actually Tennessee’s official fight song. Their real fight song is “Down the Field.” Sounds a lot like “War Eagle, fly down the field.” But “Rocky Top” is all you’ll ever hear. It’s almost like it’s all they know.

📈 BLOGLE CONFIDENCE METER

6.8 out of 10 — Again, not scared of Tennessee. Just a tad nervous about not starting out well on the road. That’s all.

🔒 ONE THING I GUARANTEE

Auburn will run a gimmicky play early. It will work, and it will feel a little bit like Malzahn.

Repeated Bonus until it happens: Alex Golesh will say a funny cuss word to whoever interviews him postgame.

🎯 THE PICK

Auburn 34, Tennessee 30

The Vols aren’t great. The fans wasted all they had last week while losing to Texas. We’ve seen what Auburn can do offensively at times. It will show up just enough to get the win in Knoxville and start October 1-0.