Athlon says Georgia is Tennessee football’s toughest game in 2020
Will facing the UGA Dawgs in Athens, Ga. be the Tennessee football Volunteers’ toughest game?
Over the past decade plus, Tennessee football fans have written off their matchup with the Alabama Crimson Tide as the one sure loss each year. However, this year, there is now chatter that it may be a different game.
In a ranking of the Vols’ 12 games by difficulty, Rob McVey of Athlon Sports said that the Georgia Bulldogs will be UT’s toughest matchup. Assuming the schedule stays as it is, UT’s matchup with Georgia was moved to November this year and will be its second to last game of the year.
Alabama came in at No. 2 for Tennessee football, with the Oklahoma Sooners at No. 3 and the Florida Gators at No. 4. The South Carolina Gamecocks came in at No. 5, and the Kentucky Wildcats came in at No. 6. Here’s a bit of what McVey wrote about the schedule.
"The Volunteers now look to take another step forward, riding the momentum of a six-game win streak into year three of the Jeremy Pruitt era on Rocky Top. While there is plenty of reason for optimism, a less forgiving slate of matchups awaits in 2020, and there’s also plenty of uncertainty regarding how the season will look like for the sport in general.Tennessee’s schedule, as currently constructed, features four opponents that won at least 11 games in 2019, and all four of those teams are likely to begin this season ranked in the top 10 (Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Florida). Matchups against South Carolina, Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas could prove difficult as well."
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Although Nick Saban’s team is still a brutal matchup, it actually does make sense for Georgia to be ahead of them. Alabama is traveling to Knoxville to face the Vols this year, and it’s a week before their bye. Following that will be their matchup with the LSU Tigers, so UT could be a trap game.
Meanwhile, Jeremy Pruitt’s team faces the Dawgs on the road, and this may be the best team Kirby Smart has fielded since he took over at Georgia. Taking that into account, it makes perfect sense to say that Georgia is UT’s toughest matchup.
One area that was a bit confusing was putting Oklahoma ahead of Florida. Yes, the Vols face OU on the road, but that team is far less experienced. However, after seeing South Carolina put ahead of Kentucky, McVey clearly put emphasis on the home-road matchups, as the Gamecocks are significantly inferior to the Wildcats this year but the Vols play S.C. on the road.
For the bottom half of Tennessee football’s schedule, McVey had the Missouri Tigers at home at No. 7, the Arkansas Razorbacks on the road at No. 8, the Vanderbilt Commodores on the road at No. 9, the Charlotte 49ers at home at No. 10, the Troy Trojans at home at No. 11 and the Furman Paladins at home at No. 12. Nobody thinks the Vols will lose any of those games.