Paul Finebaum: Hype on Tennessee will be ratcheted up dramatically after Week 4 vs. Oklahoma

Tennessee was ranked No. 15 in the AP Top 25 at the start of the season. Only three games later, the Volunteers are the No. 6 team in the nation. ESPN’s Paul Finebaum only expects that ranking to rise after Tennessee’s Week 4 showdown against Oklahoma.

“Tennessee and [No. 5] Ole Miss are on an equally impressive run,” Finebaum said during an appearance on McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning. “The only thing about Tennessee now is at least we’ll see them on the road and we’ll see them against a good, maybe not great, team.

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“I would expect Tennessee holds up its part of the bargain. The hype on Tennessee will be ratcheted up dramatically after Saturday night at Norman.”

Oklahoma should be Tennessee’s toughest test yet this season. In Week 2, the Volunteers faced off against NC State — who was ranked No. 24 at the time — and dominated them 51-10. Tennessee defeated its other two opponents this season by an average margin of 68.5 points.

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Although Finebaum expects the Volunteers to defeat Oklahoma on Saturday, the Sooners surely won’t fall victim to a 60-point blowout. No. 14 Oklahoma is 3-0 and is only allowing opponents to record 264.7 total yards of offense per game, the 28th-least in the country.

Nonetheless, Finebaum expects Tennessee’s offense to prove to be too much for the Sooners. After all, Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel will have extra motivation for the matchup.

After playing at Oklahoma from 1999-2000, Heupel returned to the program and coached the Sooners from 2006-14. During that time, Heupel worked his way up the chain of command, ultimately serving as the program’s co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach from 2011-14.

However, Heupel was fired after the 2014 season despite the team posting an 8-5 record and winning a bowl game. Finebaum believes Heupel’s history with Oklahoma will play a factor in the game on Saturday.

“It’s really a complicated history,” Finebaum said. “When you when you think about what Heupel did for that program, and then when he was shown the door. These things happen. It was a brutal breakup. I expect Heupel to handle it extremely well Saturday, leading into the game or beginning today.

“But those fans at Norman are a little shell-shocked right now. I know they were able to bounce back a little bit, but I think they feel a big loss coming, and that is not really where they want to be playing their first SEC game.”

On Saturday, Tennessee and Oklahoma will face off at 7:30 p.m. ET. The game will air live on ABC.