California begins this season ranked in the Top 10 with good reason, while we are not convinced that the disastrous season Tennessee had last year was a total fluke.
We feel that the Golden Bears are a quarterback away from being national title contenders. Unfortunately this is not the pros where you can trade for a quarterback, so Cal will have to make do with the likes of Nate Longshore and Joe Ayoob manning the position, which should temper any national championship aspirations. Still, California is absolutely loaded on defense, has one of the best and deepest receiving corps in the country, and has one of the best running backs in Marshawn Lynch. Now granted defense is the best phase of the Tennessee team, but we feel that whichever inconsistent quarterback starts for the Golden Bears, he will have the better support players to put up enough points in this game to get the big road victory.
While most people assume that the Volunteers simply underachieved last season, we are more inclined to believe that they were overrated to begin with! We were simply never that high on Erik Ainge as a starting quarterback, and we do not expect that much improvement from him this season. That is a major problem vs. a quality defense like the one Cal possesses, so we would not be shocked if Tennessee is held below 14 points or so in this contest.
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California +1.5
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