Tennessee football: Ranking every game on Vols 2019 schedule by difficulty

4. At Missouri Tigers

Game 11

Saturday, Nov. 23; Faurot Field; Columbia, Mo.

Similar to the Vanderbilt Commodores and South Carolina Gamecocks, the Missouri Tigers have a surprise ownership of Tennessee football that has made no sense ever since they joined the SEC in 2012. They have won five of seven over the Vols and are coming off back to back 50-17 wins.

The difficulty of this game is up in the air. Former UT head coach Derek Dooley did a superb job as offensive coordinator last year for Mizzou, and this year, he’s got another major talent coming in with Kelly Bryant at quarterback.

In fact, the Tigers have talent returning all over the field. And they have this game in Columbia. So they are significantly about the No. 9. through No. 5 spots, which are all similar tiers, in terms of degree of difficulty as a game.

However like those other teams, the difficulty of this game is up in the air and depends on how good they are. And that is a question. After all, Missouri is still under a bowl ban, and we don’t know if Barry Odom’s program will have that lifted. Odom’s shots at Jeremy Pruitt trying to steal his players this offseason also make this game personal for him.

As a result, we have no idea how this team will fare. What we do know is Mizzou has dominated the last two games. They have talent again. And they have this one at home. So this is the first game on the list that’s a likely loss and not just a toss-up or likely win.