#268 ASA PLAY ON 8* Tennessee +5 over Clemson, Friday at 8 PM ET - Clemson is vastly overvalued in our opinion. They are not the same team that waltzed into the Final 4 of college football for 6 consecutive seasons from 2015 – 2020. The Tigers played a fairly easy schedule (55th SOS) due to the ACC being an average conference at best, and yet they were still only +0.7 YPP for the year. Compare that to Tennessee, who played the more difficult schedule, yet their YPP differential was +1.9. We just watched Florida St, who we considered one of the top 2 teams in the ACC along with Clemson, struggle with a 6-6 Oklahoma team (we were on FSU unfortunately). Our power ratings had FSU & Clemson rated almost dead even at the end of the year. UT was one of the top teams in the nation all season long. Too much is being made of the Vols losing QB Hooker to an injury. While it is a downgrade to new starter Joe Milton for sure, let’s not forget that Clemson will also be starting their back up QB here. True freshman Klubnik who was highly rated but has never started a collegiate game. He will definitely be better than former starter DJ at some point but making his first start vs a high level opponent might be asking a lot. Milton definitely has the experience edge having thrown for over 2,200 career yards and he was a starter at Michigan before transferring to UT a few years ago. In his 1 start to end the regular season, Milton and the Vols beat Vandy 56-0 and outgained them by 260 yards. While expected, it was still impressive as Vanderbilt was drastically improved this season (1 win from making a bowl game) and the Commodores had beaten Kentucky & Florida the previous 2 weeks. UT has got some good news when 2 of their top players (OT and DE) declared for the NFL Draft but have decided to play in this game. Other than that, we grade the opt outs of these 2 teams about even. When both teams were at full strength, our power ratings make Tennessee about a 5 points favorite on a neutral. Getting 5 is a huge and unwarranted swing in our opinion and we’ll take the value with the Vols