Tennessee football: Vols flying under radar now more than ever

Tennessee football’s blowout loss to the West Virginia Mountaineers has everybody back to ignoring the Volunteers. Maybe that’s what they need.

We’ve said it before, but we might as well stress it again. Tennessee football was the worst team in the SEC last year after their first winless conference season and their first eight-loss season. Following that was the circus that involved their coaching search which ended with Phillip Fulmer as athletic director and Jeremy Pruitt as head coach.

The drama generated offseason buzz among fans and even analysts. It carried over to last Saturday, when some national media members like Kirk Herbstreit picked the Vols in an upset, and a consensus grew to take them on the points spread. Neither thing happened.

Rather than put on a good performance, Tennessee football suffered a blowout loss at the hands of WVU, 40-14. Meanwhile, every other SEC team won. So right now, there are 13 teams in the SEC who are 1-0, and one who is 0-1 (the Vols).

As a result, everything dating back to last year is now magnified for the Vols. National media and conventional wisdom is back to ignoring them more with their first-year head coach, and they are still considered really bad. It’s just the same old losing program of the past decade.

Maybe that’s what these guys need. We’ve seen it before. A team loses early, falls off the map, and then they quietly re-emerge after winning a few irrelevant games before turning that confidence into an upset over a major team.

Tennessee football could be in that very position. The Vols will face the East Tennessee State Buccaneers and UTEP Miners over the next two weeks. As games that will likely be wins, they should easily move to 2-1 on the year. But nobody will say a word about them.

That could be exactly what they need when Dan Mullen and the Florida Gators come to town Sept. 22. Now back in the Top 25, the Gators host the Kentucky Wildcats and Colorado State Rams over the next two weeks after beating Charleston Southern. All three are likely wins to get them to 3-0 and rise even further up in the polls.

Should they win in impressive fashion, which is impossible, people will really be touting Mullen’s program. The Gators will be back. Meanwhile, the Vols will be a complete afterthought. That’s exactly what they might need to turn things around.

And the best part about it is a three-game winning streak will keep them under the radar. Even if they beat Florida at home, nobody will take these guys seriously. That’ll be more about Florida being a bigger fluke than people thought. Book it.

So when Tennessee football travels to Athens to face a young Georgia Bulldogs team, then has its bye, and then faces the Auburn Tigers and Alabama Crimson Tide, blowouts will be in store across the board. Could flying under the radar be enough for them to pull off an upset in one of those games? That would certainly define the season.