The Tennessee vs. Florida Game Will Define the Whole Season for the Volunteers

The 2015 Tennessee vs. Florida game provides the Vols football team another chance to end a frustrating losing streak to the Gators. This is the season.

Butch Jones can say all he wants that this is just “the next game on the schedule.”

The players can say all day that the streak does not mean anything to them. The last 10 years tell a different story.

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Make no mistake, the Tennessee Vols have to win this game this year. In their prime, the Vols would circle 10 wins a year and circle Florida as the one game to define the season.

That would be with everything to play for.

This time, though, while the game still defines the season, it is with everything to lose.

As a team that entered the year in the Top 25 following two straight Top Five recruiting classes, with all of their key starters back, and under a head coach in his third year, what else do the Vols need to end the streak against the Gators?

This Florida team is in transition with a first-year head coach, absolutely no offense, and a thin roster after a terrible recruiting class.

If Tennessee does not win now, they never will.

But the Gators still have the psychological advantages over the Vols, and that was put on full display at home last year with the heartbreaking 10-9 loss.

Sure, there are plenty of players who have barely been a part of this 10-game losing streak, but like the Chicago Cubs, there is a culture that rubs off on you in Knoxville, and this specific culture is not being able to beat Florida.

That psychological disadvantage derails the Vols for the whole season as well. In 2012, Tennessee never recovered from the Florida loss after the streak was supposed to come to an end.

That cost Derek Dooley his job.

In 2014, the Vols only recovered when Joshua Dobbs was inserted in at quarterback against Alabama and gave some newfound momentum to the program.

But if Tennessee does not win in this game, with so many expectations for the year, the season will turn into a loss. Right now, the schedule is setting up nicely, as Arkansas and South Carolina are now looking like easy wins, and Missouri and Kentucky remain winnable games on the road.

If Tennessee beats Florida, a 9-3 season would likely be the minimum, and they would likely go into a home game with Georgia in two weeks at 2-0 in the SEC and the division on the line.

So 9-3 could become 10-2.

But if they lose to Florida, then they will have to work to make sure that they just don’t have a replica of last season, despite all of the hype behind this season and the Preseason Top 25 ranking.

Make no mistake, this game means everything. And on top of what it means in terms of this season’s record, we all know the loss will be in the back of this team’s mind all year.

On the other hand, a win would be such a moment of elation for the program that it could propel them to heights Tennessee football is supposed to be at.

So yes, Tennessee vs. Florida for 2015 defines the season for the Vols. And there is no way to over-exaggerate this game’s importance.

Next: Teams Who Have Beaten Florida Since the Vols

The 2015 Tennessee vs. Florida game provides the Vols football team another chance to end a frustrating losing streak to the Gators. This is the season.

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