Virginia Cavaliers vs. Tennessee Volunteers Point Spead Pick

Virginia Cavaliers (0-0 SU, 0-0 ATS) vs. Tennessee Volunteers (0-0 SU, 0-0 ATS)

College Football Week 1

Date and Time: Sunday, September 2, 2023 at 12PM EDT

Where: Nissan Stadium, Nashville, Tennessee

TV: ABC

Point Spread: UVA +28.5/TENN -28.5 (Bet college foots at -105 instead of -110 at BetAnySports!)

Over/Under Total: 58.5

The Virginia Cavaliers come to Nissan Stadium in Nashville for a week one ACC vs. SEC battle with the Tennessee Volunteers. The Cavaliers were not one of those fortunate ACC teams to get a week one gimme, as they take to the road to face an Orange Bowl-winning team from last year in the Volunteers, fresh off their best season in years at 11-2. While it’s not a home game with the Vols needing to travel 2-3 hours to the stadium where the Titans play, it’s going to be an uphill battle for a Cavaliers team coming off a 3-win campaign in head coach Tony Elliott’s first season. Who can get us the cover in week one action?

State of Both Teams Heading into 2023

Going off of last year, a Virginia team that lost 6 of its last seven games with an offense that was overturned on its back wouldn’t provide much resistance to a Tennessee squad that finally became a team worth watching again in 2022. Alas, in college football, things change at an accelerated rate, so nothing is set in stone. Tony Elliott wasn’t able to come off a 6-year run by Bronco Mendenhall where he kept the Cavaliers respectful the whole time, instead reverting to the same struggling Cavaliers team we saw pre-Mendenhall. Now they have to take on a Tennessee team that beat five ranked teams last season, including Alabama, and that was in the CFP hunt until that late-season stinker against South Carolina.

Still, the top offense from last season loses its offensive coordinator and the man who made a lot of it happen in QB Hendon Hooker. In comes Joe Milton, who was slated to start before Hooker took over last season. He won’t likely be as good, which isn’t saying much when Hooker completed 70 percent of his passes with 27 TDs and just two picks. He loses a little at receiver, but there are still abundant riches aerially. All but one starting offensive lineman returns, as does leading back Jaylen Wright. If this offense turns out not to be up-to-snuff, it’s unlikely to turn up in this game.

Can the Cavaliers Compete?

It’s all relative, and with a slightly better than 4 TD spread, the term “competitive” can be taken a few ways. But for the purposes of covering this big spread, they’re going to need to come up with something. Last season was expected to be a step back, so the rough year wasn’t unexpected. But we’re still looking at a very young team with a lot of questions throughout their roster. The Cavaliers put up an average of 17 points a game and return only five starters in an offensive situation that is far from rosy. They are presumably going to try to answer their quarterback conundrum with Tony Muskett at QB. While he has the name of a QB and put up ungodly stats at Monmouth, one would need to see something good before getting excited about it. It’s just that he doesn’t have much around him, and this game is a really tough entrance exam for him and the other new faces on this offense. They will be facing a Tennessee defensive front that was dominant last season. If Muskett can find some targets after losing most of their viable ones, their best chance might be to take it to a Tennessee secondary that lost a lot of juice in the offseason.

A lot of this is built into the spread, but it could be that we’re still not even properly accounting for the uphill battle facing this Cavaliers offense. Only 17 career starts return to that O-line, and this attacking Tennessee front looks to test that. Muskett won’t have a good run game or line to lean on and will be banking on some new aerial targets to hit the ground running—a daunting proposition indeed. Tennessee has been able to attract some appealing recruits and transfers with their newfound success, and some of those guys look ready to contribute on “D” immediately.

This could come down to how much defensive resistance the Cavaliers can muster. And last season, it wasn’t so bad, only made to look worse by the offense constantly hanging them out to dry. Still, they gave up just 24 points a game, and while they lost some key pieces, 3 of their top 4 tacklers return. It’s just that there isn’t a ton of talent on this side of the ball, and the pattern of not getting supported by the other side of the ball will only be exacerbated in this matchup. Even if they turn out to be scrappy, that’s something that will surface against middling ACC teams, not Tennessee. And the same can be said about the new faces on this Tennessee offense. If they turn out to not be good enough to continue Tennessee’s upward trajectory as a program, it’s something we’re likely to learn later on in the season and not necessarily in this game.

Lay the Big Number

Time can and often does prove me wrong, but I don’t think the spread is big enough. There is enough player turnover with the Volunteers to make it less than a slam dunk that they resurface with the same menace as in 2022, but I don’t think Virginia is in a position to test that. I don’t think it will be long before they’re holding on for dear life, as coach Josh Heupel’s offense picks up where they left off, save for perhaps a few extra hiccups. I see a margin of victory, at least in the thirties. I’ll take Tennessee in week one.

Loot’s Pick to Cover the Point Spread: I’m betting on the Tennessee Volunteers minus 28.5 points.

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