Tennessee lost its first game of the season at Florida in blowout fashion, but will turn around to face Texas, who is in the midst of a grueling part of its first SEC schedule. 

There are few easy games in the SEC, and Texas is learning that quickly, losing its first two games of league play to Texas A&M and Auburn. Now, the team faces the elite defense of Tennessee, who is looking to bounce back off a loss on the road? 

Can the Vols take care of business in Austin, or will a battle tested Texas team keep up and pull an upset? 

Here’s our betting preview. 

Spread

Moneyline

Total: 132.5 (Over -115/Under -105)

Odds courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook

Tennessee

Chaz Lanier: The North Florida transfer continues to provide sound floor spacing for the Vols, shooting 44% from beyond the arc as the team’s primary shot taker. However, with a high 3-point rate comes some stinkers, like the one against Florida in which he made only one of his nine 3-point attempts. The Texas defense is stout at limiting three-point attempts as Lanier will need to put together a complete performance on the road. 

Texas

Arthuer Kaluma: The Kansas State transfer had his best game of the season in a tight loss to Auburn, scoring 34 points on 12-for-16 shooting from the field, grabbing eight rebounds in the process. The forward has been shooting lights out from the perimeter this season – 52% – as he looks to guide Texas to a signature win.

I like Texas to hang around in this one with the team’s ability to break down the Tennessee offense in isolation situations and also have several capable three-point shooters on the floor. 

The Vols compact defense forces teams to shoot from the perimeter at a high rate, the Vols are 341st in opponent 3-point rate as opponents hoist nearly 47% of shots from beyond the arc. While Texas likes to get its offense on the interior with players like Kaluma, Tre Johnson and Jordan Pope creating their own shot, the team is shooting 40% from deep this season. 

Meanwhile, it’s the opposite for the other side of the floor, as Texas funnels teams inside to the rim and denies the perimeter. Tennessee’s offense is based around its off ball cutting and ball movement, but Texas does a good job of denying that and locking up at the rim, top 10 in field goal percentage allowed near the cup, per Haslametrics.

I think this game profiles to be a defensive minded affair with Texas having the better one-on-one shot creators to keep this one within a few possessions. 

PICK: Texas +6.5

Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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Former Tennessee Titans star Frank Wycheck had stage III CTE when he died at age 52 at his home in Tennessee on Dec. 9, 2023, his family said Thursday.

CTE – chronic traumatic encephalopathy – is a degenerative brain disorder that happens due to repeated head impacts, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

Wycheck, an 11-year NFL veteran tight end, died after an apparent fall at his home in Chattanooga. His brain was studied by researchers at Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center, which confirmed he had stage III CTE, one below stage IV, the most severe diagnosis.

“We witnessed our father becoming increasingly isolated and experiencing drastic mood swings. He became more impulsive, and often inconsistent and undependable,” Wycheck’s daughter, Deanna Wycheck Szabo, said in a statement. “Now in hindsight, I understand that he was suffering from the symptoms of CTE due to the repeated trauma his brain and body endured over 11 seasons in the NFL.”

The Wycheck family issued support for continued research and education around CTE for NFL players and their families.

“Our family is grateful to learn of his confirmed CTE diagnosis in hopes to continue our father’s desire to bring awareness, increased intervention, education, and support for NFL alumni and their families related to CTE,” Wycheck Szabo said. “Our hope is that NFL alumni, who believe they are suffering from CTE, will be given the much-needed resources and guidance prior to their symptoms reaching a debilitating state. With on-going CTE research and diagnosis’, we hope future NFL alumni and families will be explicitly given an outline and plan of action in receiving care and treatment.”

Prior to his death, Wycheck was also an advocate for CTE research, even noting he believed he suffered from the disease.

“Some people have heads made of concrete, and it doesn’t really affect some of those guys,” he told researchers in 2017, per AP. “But CTE is real. I know I’m suffering through it, and it’s been a struggle and I feel for all the guys out there that are going through this.”

Wycheck was a three-time NFL Pro Bowl selection across 11 seasons for the Titans, Houston Oilers and Washington. He finished his NFL career with 505 receptions for 5,126 yards and 28 touchdowns in 155 games, including 135 starts.

Tennessee on Thursday released a redacted version of its new execution manual, blacking out sporadic titles and team names throughout the trimmed-down document that now provides vague guidelines and omits previously detailed steps on carrying out the death penalty. The Department of Correction initially would not hand over the manual when pressed by the AP, arguing that the government had to keep the entire manual secret to protect the identities of the executioner and other people involved. On Thursday, the agency reversed course and provided the AP with a copy of the lethal injection protocol.

The 44-page manual is noticeably shorter than the 2018 version the state had been operating under, which contained nearly 100 pages, including 11 detailing how lethal injection drugs should be procured, stored, and administered. The failure to follow those procedures forced Republican Gov. Bill Lee in 2022 to call a last-minute halt to the execution of Oscar Smith and place a moratorium on new executions while the process was under review. An independent report later found that none of the drugs prepared for the seven people executed since 2018 had been fully tested as required by the manual. The report also revealed that officials considered trying to acquire drugs through a veterinarian or even importing them internationally. Later, the state Attorney General’s Office conceded in court that two of the people most responsible for overseeing the drugs “incorrectly testified” that they were being tested as required.

The new manual contains a single page on the lethal injection chemicals with no specific directions for testing them. It removes a requirement that the drugs come from a licensed pharmacist, per the AP. Yet the new protocol has several additions, including now authorizing the state to deviate from the protocol whenever the correction commissioner deems it necessary. The 2018 protocol required a series of three drugs administered in sequence; the version unveiled last week requires a single dose of pentobarbital. And the people most responsible for carrying out the execution will now be outside contractors. The manual requires an IV team and a physician who are not Department of Correction personnel.

(More death penalty stories.)