Vols Open As Road Underdog Against Missouri

Tennessee (2-2) will travel to Columbia (Mo.) this week to take on the Missouri Tigers (2-2), but the Volunteers have opened as an early underdog, according to multiple sportsbooks.

Tennessee opened as a three-point underdog on DraftKings Sportsbook, the Vols are currently a three-and-a-half point underdog on FanDuel, and a three-point underdog on Circa Sports.

The Vols are coming off a 38-14 loss to Florida in which they did not cover the double-digit spread, and the Vols will quickly have to get back on track after the disappointing loss.

"Obviously, extremely disappointing that the second half unfolded the way that it did," Josh Heupel said on Saturday night. "We competed and we responded extremely well in the first half all three phases of the game. I thought [there was an] opportunity in the second half, didn’t take advantage of certain opportunities and didn’t play smart football down the stretch. Not a question of wanting to as we came out of the tunnel for the second half, but obviously not good enough to cut it or smart enough competitors to go play the way that we needed to as a good football team."

While it would have been a major upset for the Vols to beat Florida, they now have a winnable game ahead of them, and Josh Heupel knows how important it is to close the gap.

"It’s in everything that you do," Heupel said about this. "There’s plenty of plays out there for us as coaches and players to close the gap tonight. We had a chance for it to be a tie-ball game going in. It’s who we are and how we continue to develop as we build this program. It’s in recruiting, too. We have to continue to grow or to race against ourselves. I said it last week, I said it the week before that. There are things for us to do that we can do better than what we showed in the second half, in particular tonight."

The Vols players are not deterred by the loss under their first-year head coach, and Alontae Taylor made that clear during his post-game media availability.

"We won’t fall apart let me start off with that," Taylor said. "We are going to get closer as a team, we are going to watch film, and continue to build that bond. Come next week, we will handle that when it comes. One thing I will say is that we will not fall apart this year and you can quote me on that."