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ESPN’s predictor model knows that No. 4 Tennessee will be in a hostile environment on Saturday afternoon when it travels to Norman to face Oklahoma.
But the model is also aware that the Volunteers have righted the ship after an ugly 3-4 stretch with back-to-back ranked victories at home over Florida and Missouri. The latter of those wins came Wednesday night, when Tennessee (19-4, 6-4 SEC) rallied from a 6-point halftime deficit with a 57-point second-half explosion to outlast the 15th-ranked Tigers.
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Tennessee got a big lift from the returns of Igor Milicic Jr. and Zakai Zeigler, who both scored 21 points to lead the way. Zeigler had missed the Florida game because of a knee injury, while Milicic was out because of an illness. They both looked just fine on Wednesday night, and they’ll be instrumental in helping the Volunteers as they head on the road for Saturday’s tilt against the struggling Sooners (16-6, 3-6).
ESPN’s model gives the Volunteers a 67.1% chance to win on the road on Saturday against Oklahoma, which has lost 6 of its past 9 games amid its brutally tough SEC schedule.
That schedule got even tougher this week, first with the Sooners losing at No. 1 Auburn by 28 points on Tuesday night and now having to come home and host the fourth-ranked team in the country.
The Volunteers and Sooners will tip things off at noon ET, with the game taking center stage on ESPN.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
