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Tennessee Vols Should Finish Season in Top 25, Begin Next Year in Top 10

By Caleb Calhoun

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Despite a 3-4 record after a 19-14 loss to the Alabama Crimson Tide, the Tennessee Vols football team should win out. And the Volunteers will finish ranked.

After a loss to the Arkansas Razorbacks three weeks ago, the Tennessee Vols fell to 2-3 on the season, and Butch Jones was on the hot seat.

Three weeks later, an unlikely victory over the Georgia Bulldogs and a close loss on the road to the Alabama Crimson Tide has moved the football team to 3-4. But somehow, there is a lot more momentum behind this team now.

Jones has guided his team through the toughest seven-game start of any team in college football. And while 3-4 was not the ideal outcome, especially when they had a lead in three of the fourth quarters in these games and blew leads of 13 points or more in three of them, things are about to get much easier.

Consider that Tennessee’s losses are to Oklahoma, who looks like it could win the Big 12, Florida, who now has one loss on the year, Arkansas, who got on a roll right before they went to Knoxville in what was a trap game for the Vols, and Alabama, who is, well, Alabama.

None of these are bad losses.

And nobody Tennessee plays the rest of the year is nearly as difficult as these guys.

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The rest of Tennessee’s SEC schedule looks incredibly easy, with road games against Missouri and Kentucky, two very mediocre teams that the Vols should beat, and home games against South Carolina, North Texas, and Vanderbilt, the Vols should win out easily.

Doing that will at least get this team to 8-4 and teetering on a spot in the Top 25.

That will follow with a likely Outback or TaxSlayer Bowl appearance. And the Vols will be blessed with a much inferior opponent in that game who over-achieved to get there.

As a result, Tennessee should win that game running away. Closing the season on a six-game winning streak to get this team to 9-4 will certainly mean a Top 25 finish for them.

And quite honestly, that is exactly what we should have been expecting this year anyway.

Then, next year, the Vols will have all of their major weapons back along with another Top 20 recruiting class. Joshua Dobbs at quarterback, Jalen Hurd and Alvin Kamara at running back, almost the entire offensive line with more experience, all of the wide receivers, almost the whole defensive line, and everybody at linebacker will return.

The secondary may have to rebuild with LaDarrell McNeil and Brian Randolph leaving at safety, but Todd Kelly Jr. has shown he can step right in at strong safety, and Evan Berry should be ready at free safety by then. Th only real worry is if Cam Sutton leaves early.

The team next year will be deeper, more experienced, and more talented with another great recruiting class.

And if they win out this year, it will be enough to put them in next year’s preseason Top 10. This is the trajectory of the program we expected. No reason to overreact to the 3-4 record at this point.

But the most important thing for Jones and Co. to focus on right now to make all of this possible is to win out.

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