Believe it or not, few have been louder in their praise of Tennessee’s success this season than former Florida and Ohio State coach Urban Meyer.
Meyer routinely praises Tennessee on his podcast The Triple Option and even slotted the Vols into his SEC Championship game during Tennessee’s open date last week.
With the Vols returning to SEC action against Arkansas this weekend in Fayetteville, Meyer confidently boasted that he was “still a Tennessee bandwagon” guy as he picked the Vols’ to cover the spread in Razorback Stadium.
“Yeah, I’m still a Tennessee bandwagon guy,” Meyer said on Wednesday’s episode of The Triple Option. “I think they’re a top four team in the country. It would be hard to rank those top four, though, maybe top five. But Nico I., I’ve talked about him over and over again. He’s certainly a Heisman candidate. He won’t win it with the other performances but I’m going to talk about the Tennessee defense. No. 1 in total defense in America. And that’s a thing that’s overshadowed because everyone’s talking about that offense. So it’s one of the two or three most balanced teams in America as far as offense and defense, I’m going to pick Tennessee to cover the spread.”
More from RTI: Arkansas Football Featuring Two Former Vols as Captains Against Tennessee
Tennessee is a 13.5-point favorite over Arkansas at the time of this publication at noon ET on Thursday.
The Vols enter Saturday’s contest with a 4-0 record, the No. 4 ranking in the nation, and owners of two Top 25 wins so far. While Saturday’s game won’t be a Top 25 showdown, it’ll still be a chance for Tennessee to impress AP voters and the eventual College Football Playoff committee by taking care of business in a hostile road SEC environment.
While Tennessee has been dominant on both sides of the ball this season, there’s actually a different stat that could prove to be the biggest difference in Saturday’s game – the Vols are coming off a bye week.
It’s safe to say that Josh Heupel is a fan of having an extra week to prepare. Over the span of his career, Heupel’s teams have been 8-1 coming off of an open date with a perfect 3-0 record at Tennessee. Tennessee’s offense is also averaging a clean 35 points per game coming out of open dates in Heupel’s three years.
Tennessee was already a tough matchup for Arkansas on Saturday but the open-date storyline makes it that much more difficult for Sam Pittman‘s team.
Stay tuned to Rocky Top Insider for complete, on-site coverage of No. 4 Tennessee’s game against Arkansas on Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. ET from Razorback Stadium.
Check out the full clip from Urban Meyer on The Triple Option below:
