Tennessee football: Six wins a reasonable expectation, outlet says

Is a winning record the best Tennessee football Volunteers fans can hope for?

Before the SEC reduced the schedule for every team to a 10-game conference-only slate, advanced analytics suggested that Tennessee football would have a difficult time surpassing six wins despite being much better. The new schedule would seem to make it harder.

However, it seems like six wins is still on the table for many analysts who don’t base their expectations in such advanced data. 247Sports said that six wins, which would guarantee a winning record, is a reasonable expectation for the 2020 Vols.

Projections for Tennessee football’s season have ranged from 3-7 to 8-2, and it’s feasible to see possibilities for both. However, six wins is definitely on the higher end of expectations. Here’s a bit of what the outlet says about those expectations.

"Tennessee’s offensive line is promising, but has Jarrett Guarantano already reached his peak as a quarterback? He threw for less than 2,200 yards to go along with 16 touchdowns and eight interceptions last season. Losing Jauan Jennings and Marquez Callaway at receiver hurts, but the Vols should be better at running back with Ty Chandler and Eric Gray back on the field."

If the Vols were to get six wins, the easiest way would be for them to first run the table against the three teams clearly projected to finish behind them: the Missouri Tigers, Arkansas Razorbacks and Vanderbilt Commodores. Then they would want to win their two toss-up games against the Kentucky Wildcats and at the South Carolina Gamecocks.

Getting that sixth win could come with a bowl win if we’re sticking with the most realistic possibility. They would likely be bowl eligible at 5-5 and finish 6-5 if that were to happen, which wouldn’t be a horrible season given the state of Jeremy Pruitt’s third team.

However, there’s a bit more difficult of a path for Rocky Top to finish with six regular season wins. The most realistic way on that front would be to beat one of its two new opponents, the Texas A&M Aggies at home of the Auburn Tigers on the road. Somehow upsetting the Florida Gators at home is another possibility.

Everybody is naturally going to write off the Alabama Crimson Tide and Georgia Bulldogs as losses. Florida is written off as a likely loss, and Auburn being on the road makes things difficult. South Carolina and Kentucky aren’t sure wins either.

Simply put, Tennessee football has a difficult path to six wins, particularly six regular season wins. Pulling it off, though, would be a major accomplishment and really set the program up for a strong future heading into the 2021 season.