Tennessee football at Georgia must-see for 2020, national magazine says
Is the Tennessee football Volunteers at the Bulldogs a top 20 game?
If there is one game Tennessee football fans plan to write off as a loss this year, it’s not even the Alabama Crimson Tide or the Florida Gators. It’s the Georgia Bulldogs, the one clear-cut top five team the Vols are playing on the road.
Somehow, though, that is the one game that includes the Vols in Athlon’s top 30 must-see matchups for the 2020 season. Sure, the year has already started, but there were no intriguing games the first two weeks anyway, just a couple of big upsets.
Anyway, Tennessee football’s Oct. 10 game at Georgia, which will be its third game of the year, came in at No. 18 on the list, and it’s a ranking that definitely comes as a shock. Here’s what was written about this matchup.
"After a dismal start that included a loss to Georgia State, Tennessee rolled off a winning streak to cap the program’s most promising season under Jeremy Pruitt. Expectations have shifted, with the Vols getting some buzz as potential dark-horse challengers to Georgia and Florida in the East. For the last 12 years, however, Tennessee has not done well with high expectations. An early-season date against rival Georgia will calibrate just how high the ceiling is for these Vols."
It appears that this game is being listed as must-see since it could be a measuring stick for UT, not necessarily because of it being a toss-up. However, that alone making the top 30 games this year shows just how much interest Rocky Top is drawing.
Only seven other SEC games were ahead of the Vols’ matchup at the UGA Dawgs. They include the LSU Tigers at Florida, LSU at the Auburn Tigers, Florida and Georgia in Jacksonville, Fla., Auburn at Georgia, Alabama at LSU, Auburn at Alabama and Georgia at Alabama, the last of which came in at No. 1 on the list.
That means only Alabama, Georgia, Florida, LSU and Auburn had higher-ranked games than the Vols, and all of those teams are top 10 teams. Could Georgia be an intriguing game? Well, in the original schedule it may have been because it appeared to be a trap game for the Bulldogs.
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This time, though, there’s still the off-chance it’s a trap game. Tennessee football visits Georgia just before Georgia visits Alabama. Meanwhile, UGA is sandwiched between the Kentucky Wildcats and Missouri Tigers in Knoxville for the Vols, two very winnable games. Still, it’s extremely hard to see Jeremy Pruitt’s third team pulling off an upset here.