Week 1: Tennessee vs Ball State 9/1/22 College Football Picks, Predictions, Odds

The Tennessee Volunteers and Ball State Cardinals do battle Thursday night in week 1 college football action from Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee.

The Ball State Cardinals will hope to bounce back after a down year compared to 2020s standards, finishing the year at 6-7, including a 4-4 mark in MAC play. The Cardinals ended up in the Camellia Bowl but fell to Georgia State 51-20. This marked the first time since 2012-13 that the Cardinals played in back-to-back bowl games, and will be hoping to make three straight bowl games for the first time in program history this coming season. Now Drew Plitt is an NFL QB, leaving the job at QB1 to John Paddock who hasn’t thrown a touchdown pass, but he still has spent enough time in the Cardinals’ program and behind Plitt to know his stuff and know this offense. Carson Steele is back at RB after logging 891 rushing yards and 6 TDs last season, while Jayson Jackson and Yo’Heinz Tyler provide a decent 1-2 punch at receiver for Ball State. On defense, Tavion Woodward led the way with 5 sacks and 8.5 TFLs and he’s back to lead the pass rush. Last year’s top tackler is gone but Clayton Coll returns and is likely to fill the void of top tackle man left by Jaylin Thomas. The Ball State secondary lost some pieces as well, but bring back guys like Ameche Uzodinma and Malcolm Lee for a level of continuity in that part of the defense.

The Tennessee Volunteers will be out to build on a solid 7-6 season in year one under Josh Heupel, which saw the Vols post a 4-4 mark in SEC play in 2021 and earn a spot in the Music City Bowl, a game that Tennessee lost to Purdue by a final count of 48-45. The Vols bring back a lot of top-tier talent from last year’s squad, including Hendon Hooker who made a splash after transferring from Virginia Tech. Hooker threw for almost 3,000 yards with just 31 touchdowns to 3 interceptions and rushed for 616 yards. And if something were to happen to Hooker, the Vols have a solid backup in the wings in Joe Milton who has proven that he’s a capable QB as well. Jabari Small’s back after leading the Vols in rushing with 792 rushing yards and 9 TDs and Jaylen Wright chipped in 409 yards and 4 TDs as well. Cedric Tillman’s also back after leading Tennessee’s receivers with 1,081 receiving yards and 12 TDs while Bru McCoy is transferring in from USC and Princeton Fant and Jacob Warren are likely to be key cogs in the offense as well at tight end. On defense, the Vols have a lot of their big pieces back, especially up front with Byron Young and Jeremy Banks combining for 11.5 TFLs last season. Banks also led the Vols with 5.5 sacks and 128 tackles. Trevon Flowers will lead the Vols secondary alongside Jaylen McCullough at safety, who logged 3 INTs and 49 tackles last season.

Ball State is 1-4 ATS in their last 5 non-conference games and 1-5 ATS in their last 6 games overall while the under is 3-0-1 in their last 4 Thursday games. Tennessee is 12-25 ATS in their last 37 home games and 2-6 ATS in their last 8 games against the MAC while the over is 4-0 in their last 4 non-conference games.

I get the allure of a big underdog in week 1, but the problem for Ball State is that they’re putting in a new QB who hasn’t seen very much playing time and have some work to do to be able to keep up with this Vols team. Tennessee brings back a ton of pieces from a team that hung around with some of the best the SEC had to offer last season and have a dynamic offense that can hang up points in bunches if you’re not careful. This feels like a 45-10 kind of game in favor of the Vols, so I’ll lay the points with Tennessee here as I just don’t see Ball State keeping this one close whatsoever.