It was odd timing, considering UCF’s 24-7 victory over Memphis, and Tennessee’s 52-24 defeat at the hands of the Alabama Crimson Tide over the past two nights. But former Auburn football head coach Gus Malzahn still caught an insult from CBS Sports’ Shehan Jeyarajah, while Josh Heupel caught praise.

The Volunteers hung around until the fourth quarter at Bryant-Denny Stadium before Nick Saban’s squad gained discipline and put their foot on the throats of Heupel’s Vols by hanging four touchdowns on the Tennessee defense in the fourth quarter.

Meanwhile, Malzahn’s Knights were never losing in their home throttling of the Memphis Tigers on Friday night that even saw former Auburn football QB Joey Gatewood throw a touchdown pass.

But Jeyarajah still framed this season in a negative light:

Josh Heupel went to an SEC program and Gus Malzahn went to an AAC program and one of them is dramatically improving their spot while the other is falling apart.

I would not have guessed which is which before the year.

— Shehan Jeyarajah (@ShehanJeyarajah) October 24, 2021

Fly War Eagle thinks it’s a bit premature to say something like this considering the strength of schedule remaining for both teams.

Tennessee looks likely to split their remaining games. Three are at home, and two of them are against Vanderbilt and a middling Sunbelt team…but one of them is Georgia.

It’d be nothing short of herculean to see Heupel beat the Bulldogs this season. Meanwhile, Kentucky at Kroger Field is a sizable challenge as well, though the Wildcats are no shoe-in for that SEC East showdown given their thin margins of victory this year over inferior competition to the Vols.

Still, compare Tennessee’s next two weeks to UCF’s slate of Temple, Tulane, UCONN, and USF. SMU is unbeaten, but they’re not the #1 team in the nation.

This take may look bad at the end of the season if Malzahn can take care of business down the stretch and Heupel can’t knock off the crème de la crème of the SEC East, resulting in a .500 season on Rocky Top and an 8-4 or even 9-3 season in Orlando.