After a dominant 31-3 victory over Mississippi State at Sanford Stadium on Saturday night, a 4-0 Georgia team travels to Knoxville to face off with the Tennessee Volunteers (3-1) on Saturday afternoon in Neyland Stadium. A victory on Saturday in Knoxville, would give the Bulldogs their 800th all-time win in school history, currently putting them 11th nationally in all-time victories. Georgia enters this weekend ranked No. 7 in the AP poll and No. 8 in the Coaches poll.
In SEC history the top three teams for league titles are Alabama (26), Tennessee (13) and Georgia (12). The Bulldogs are looking for their first 5-0 start since 2012. That year, the Vols came to Athens and Georgia won 51-44 to improve to 5-0. Tennessee leads the all-time series over Georgia 23-21-2 and has won the last one in both Athens and Knoxville; however, the Bulldogs have won five of the last seven matchups, including wins at Knoxville in 2011 and 2013.
The last five meetings have been decided by a touchdown or less. The Bulldogs last beat Tennessee in 2014 with a 35-32 win in Athens. Georgia’s last win in Knoxville was a 34-31 overtime victory in 2013. Tennessee has not beaten a top 10 SEC team in Knoxville since defeating the No. 10 Georgia Bulldogs 37-20 in 1999.
Butch Jones (33-22) is in his 5th season coaching in Knoxville and returns 14 starters from a 2016 team that went 9-4 and finished off with a win over Nebraska in the Music City Bowl.
The Volunteers’ offense is led by, John Kelly, the extremely versatile junior running back from Detroit, MI. Through the first 4 games of the 2017 season, Kelly is the Volunteers’ leading rusher and third on the team in receiving. Kelly also leads the team with 6 touchdowns out of the total 15 offensive touchdowns scored thus far by Tennessee. The Tennessee signal-caller is Quinten Dormady. The junior Dormady beat out redshirt freshman Jarrett Guarantano in the fall to capture the job. Through the first 4 games of the season Dormady has thrown for 861 yards, with 6 touchdowns and is completing 59% of his passes.
Defensively, the Volunteers are led by sophomore linebacker Daniel Bituli, who leads the team in tackles (38) heading into the matchup with Georgia. Tennessee has registered 10 sacks on the season and is led in that category by senior linebacker Colton Jumper (4).
Currently, Vegas is showing Georgia has an 8 point road favorite and the total is set at 47.
