Tennessee football: Can Vols go 8-4 as 247sports reporter predicts?

One prediction for Tennessee football’s second season under Jeremy Pruitt has the Volunteers winning eight regular season games. Can they pull that off?

Last week, there was an ESPN article suggesting Tennessee football could upset the Georgia Bulldogs. Two weeks before that, Sporting News predicted that the Vols would make a New Year’s Day bowl game, the TaxSlayer Bowl to be specific.

Now, the expectations are continuing to stack up. And another publication is getting in on the fun. Brad Crawford of 247Sports has the Vols going 8-4 in the regular season this year, saying that their only losses will be to the Florida Gators, Georgia Bulldogs, Alabama Crimson Tide and Missouri Tigers.

In light of Crawford’s prediction, we ask one fundamental question. Does Tennessee football really have a path to pull this off? Put aside the fact that we all expect the Vols to improve significantly. We’ve broken down why that’s the case already. Getting to eight wins in 2019 would work wonders for Jeremy Pruitt’s program as a whole, but it’s just hard to know if he can do it.

To get there, the Vols would have to do one thing that, fortunately for them, they have a much better chance than doing last year. They need to win all four non-conference games. Given the fact that their toughest matchup is at home against the BYU Cougars this year, as opposed to the Will Grier led West Virginia Mountaineers, that’s a likely result.

So, assuming they keep pace, that would mean six wins instead of five this year. Another advantage is the fact that they have the South Carolina Gamecocks at home this year after losing to them by three on the road. And S.C. is not expected to have near the level of improvement that the Vols are expected to have this year.

With that, you would assume there seven wins in the bag. But on the other hand, what do they replace their two big wins from last year with? Well, one was at the Auburn Tigers, and they are replaced by the Mississippi State Bulldogs at home. Their other big win was at home against the Kentucky Wildcats, and that game is on the road this year.

Crawford has acknowledged Mississippi State as the Vols’ most dangerous game. MSU is a program that, despite losing significant talent, could take a significant step forward under Joe Moorhead. In fact, they could be ahead of where Auburn was last year when the Vols faced them if things go a certain way.

Meanwhile, Kentucky would seem more difficult being on the road. But one thing working in favor of UT outside of beating them 24-7 last year is that the Wildcats lose a ton of talent from that team. So they’re still very beatable again.

As a result, given last year, we have to consider those two games toss-ups favoring the Vols. That does indeed get the Vols to seven wins. Finally, what about the Vanderbilt Commodores? Derek Mason has won three straight games against Rocky Top, and the last two have been blowouts.

Well, Vanderbilt does travel to Knoxville this year. On top of that, they are also expected to take a major step back with the loss of Kyle Shurmur at quarterback. But given how bad the blowouts have been the last two years, we can only consider that game a toss-up.

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Taking all this into account, the schedule truly does favor Tennessee football this year. They have four likely wins and four toss-ups favoring them. The problem is that you don’t win all your toss-ups, even if they all slightly favor you. One of those is likely to go against you.

This means that Crawford is assuming the Vols will run the table in those toss-up games and only lose the ones in which they are significantly outmatched. And yes, they are totally outmatched in the four games Crawford has them losing. Alabama and Georgia speak for themselves. But Florida on the road in Dan Mullen’s second year is brutal, and they have Mizzou on the road as well.

Can they still reach eight wins in spite of that by taking advantage of a very favorable schedule? Living up to what Crawford expects of them combined with what Sporting News is predicting, maybe they will. And if they do give Georgia just a scare as ESPN picks in the process, well, Pruitt will have a lot to sell for Tennessee football on the recruiting trail next year.