ESPN, Hatin' On The Vols

Today, I logged onto my ESPN account to make my picks in the Deadspin College Pick'em league, and noticed something a bit odd. If you're unfamiliar with the league, basically you select a winning team for each of the 10 games presented then assign each one "confidence points"(a scale of 1-10) based on how sure that they'll win their game. For each game there's a summary telling you some tidbits about how each team's season is going, and how they've fared over the past few games. This is where I noticed the oddity.

As I finished reading the Kentucky/Georgia summary I realized that whoever had written it was predicting a Tennessee loss in either of their last two games. You can see in the screen capture that I underlined the word "inevitable" which is used in referencing UT losses to Vandy or Kentucky. In fact, here's the direct quote:

Georgia just has to get past the Cats and wait for the inevitable Tennessee loss to Vanderbilt or Kentucky.

And as any fan of the Matrix(You hear that Mr. Anderson?... That is the sound of inevitability... It is the sound of your death), or anyone with access to a dictionary, can tell you inevitability means:

"incapable of being avoided or evaded"

So basically they're saying that a Tennessee loss to either Vandy or Kentucky is unavoidable. That it's guaranteed. The problem with that is that the Volunteers have traditionally played pretty well against both Vanderbilt and Kentucky.

Against Vanderbilt, the Vols are 23-2 over their last 25 meetings. The most recent loss was in 2005. Prior to that, Tennessee had not lost to Vandy since 1982.

Against Kentucky, the Vols are 24-1 over the last 25 meetings. The last time they lost to the Wildcats was in 1984.

Sure, the way this season has gone anything could happen, but Tennessee losing either(or both) of its last two regular season games isn't a foregone conclusion. Though, it appears like someone out there, either through a grammatical error or because they hate the Vols, would like you think otherwise.