It is Furman week.

Tennessee is favored by approximately the annual operating budget of a small European country. Furman’s players are presumably fine young men who attended class today, answered their mothers’ texts and have made no public claim that they intend to destroy the University of Tennessee.

None of this has helped.

By Monday morning, the message board had already entered the first stage of game-week psychosis: insisting that nobody was nervous while repeatedly asking everyone else if they were nervous.

OldBullsGapVol opened the proceedings.

“I’m not worried,” he wrote, before producing four paragraphs explaining precisely what worried him.

The offensive line.

The secondary.

The first-quarter play-calling.

Whether the team would come out “flat.”

Whether Furman had spent the entire offseason secretly preparing for Tennessee while Tennessee arrogantly prepared for teams that possess comparable scholarship limits.

This is the traditional opening-week fear: the belief that a team from the Southern Conference has been hiding an advanced weapons program in the foothills of South Carolina.

Nobody has seen it.

Nobody can prove it exists.

But by kickoff, half the board will be convinced Furman has a 26-year-old Australian punter, three Georgia transfers and an offensive coordinator who has spent nine months studying Tennessee’s third-down tendencies.

ThirdAndChavis attempted to restore order.

“Guys, it’s just Furman.”

This was immediately identified as dangerous overconfidence.

Gallavol responded that Appalachian State was “just Appalachian State” once, apparently establishing that every football game against every smaller program is now a potential national catastrophe until Tennessee leads by 35.

SulliVol remembered Georgia State.

Bluetick88 remembered the first half against Austin Peay.

UTClassOf62 remembered a 1962 game that may or may not have involved Furman, although no one challenged him because he claimed to have attended it and owns a police scanner.

By lunchtime, the discussion had shifted from whether Tennessee would win to the far more urgent question:

Will G-Mac play?

The board divided immediately.

One faction wants him in the game as soon as Tennessee takes a two-touchdown lead. They need to see the arm. They need to see command of the offense. They need to evaluate his footwork from a television angle located 70 yards away while eating Rotel dip.

The second faction wants him protected beneath Neyland Stadium in a temperature-controlled vault.

“No reason to risk him,” Cromptons3rdRead wrote. “You don’t burn your future against Furman.”

G-Mac’s future apparently cannot survive seven handoffs and a bubble screen in the fourth quarter.

A third faction wants him to play—but only with the first-team offensive line.

A fourth wants him to sit—but also believes failing to play him would retard his development.

A fifth wants him to receive meaningful snaps, provided the snaps are not meaningful enough to expose him to physical contact, pressure, adversity or the possibility of making an incomplete pass.

This is known as the Tennessee Backup Quarterback Development Doctrine.

He must gain experience without experiencing anything.

Of course, if G-Mac enters and immediately throws a touchdown, the board will begin wondering whether the wrong quarterback started.

If he throws an interception, seven posters will announce that freshmen need time while quietly deleting everything they wrote during spring practice.

If he hands the ball off six times, the coaches will be accused of hiding him.

If he does not play, somebody will report that he looked unhappy on the sideline.

And if the camera catches him talking to another quarterback, OldBullsGapVol will enhance the footage and attempt to read his lips.

The most likely outcome remains painfully ordinary.

Tennessee will beat Furman.

The starters will play until the score becomes socially uncomfortable. G-Mac may get a few snaps. Coaches will learn something. Fans will learn nothing because they decided what everything meant three months ago.

But that is Saturday.

We still have an entire week to determine whether the Vols are overlooking Furman, whether the coaches are mishandling G-Mac and whether one mildly vague injury-report comment means the offensive line has collapsed.

Nobody is nervous.

They have merely begun preparing emotionally for every conceivable disaster.

Against Furman.