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Tennessee Vols Facing Most Pressure of the Season at Missouri Tigers

By Caleb Calhoun

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The Tennessee Vols football team is facing more pressure against the Missouri Tigers than any game this season. Will the Volunteers deliver?

Next: Smokey Points: Top 5 Vols vs. North Texas

Remember back when the Tennessee Vols were 2-3 and Butch Jones was firmly on the hot seat?

After beating Georgia and almost beating Alabama, Jones had the chance to save the season and any skepticism about him.

The goal was simple: win the rest of the games against unranked teams to finish 8-4, win the bowl game to finish 9-4 and back in the Top 25, and then sell the fact that you have almost your entire team coming back.

And midway through the South Carolina game, he seemed on track to do just that. But recent struggles since then along with things happening in Missouri now have the Vols facing their most difficult task of the year.

Make no mistake, Tennessee still has to win out, and right now they do not have any bad losses on the year.

But after looking terrible in the second half against South Carolina and awful all game against North Texas, they travel to Columbia to play a team that feeds off of ugly football.

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Through all of their struggles, Missouri is back at 5-5 after beating the BYU Cougars last Saturday night. A win against Tennessee at home secures them a bowl game.

And with all that has taken place on campus along with the news of Gary Pinkel’s resignation at the end of the year, this team will be playing with more determination than anybody has in all of college football.

It is the worst thing for a Tennessee team that has gotten away with sloppy mistakes over the past few weeks. Even in losses, the Tigers made an ugly game out of Georgia and Vanderbilt. The Vols are playing right into their hands with their recent play.

Jones still has to win out to salvage what happened early in the year. But it is going to be extremely hard for his team to do that on Saturday.

Missouri is more than good enough to beat Tennessee, which is something they have done each of the past three years already. Their defense is good enough to force Joshua Dobbs into making lots of mistakes, which he is clearly prone to doing.

And salvaging their season means slamming the door on any chance for Tennessee to avoid the under-achieving title of the year.

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For a team that started the year in the Top 25, finishing 9-4 can be good enough to meet expectations.

Finishing 8-5, particularly 7-5 in the regular season, represents a drastic failure to meet expectations.

Jones cannot allow his team to play ugly football on Saturday. For his own sake, they need this win.

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