Tennessee football: Seven wins or better now looks like a real possibility

Going 7-3 now looks possible for the Tennessee football Volunteers.

Despite projected improvements this year, there was genuine concern surrounding Tennessee football entering Jeremy Pruitt’s third year. The change to a 10-game all-SEC schedule made for five games against preseason top 11 teams and two more against borderline top 25 teams.

In order to just finish .500, the Vols would have to beat the three most winnable games on their schedule against the Missouri Tigers, Arkansas Razorbacks and Vanderbilt Commodores and then win their two toss-up games, against the South Carolina Gamecocks and Kentucky Wildcats. Those toss-up games were the circled ones.

Well, Tennessee football just won one of them. By beating USC on the road, Rocky Top is already over-performing its preseason ESPN FPI projections, which had UT at 3-7 right before the year began. Yes, that included losing both toss-up games.

Now, however, the updated FPI has the Vols at 5-5, beating Kentucky at home. You have to think that USC was the harder game being on the road, even if that doesn’t matter as much this year, and considering the fact that UT still owns UK.

Beyond just winning a toss-up game, though, other developments in the SEC give Tennessee football fans plenty of reason to hope for something better. Everybody saw what happened against the Texas A&M Aggies, as they had to hold off the Vanderbilt Commodores.

After it was written off as a likely loss before the year, the Vols have now been given a 44 percent chance to beat A&M. That game is in Knoxville in November, so Texas kids coming into the mountains during that time could play a factor.

Then there are the Auburn Tigers. Pruitt doesn’t just have a history of owning Gus Malzahn. Auburn looked horrendous against Kentucky for a large part of Saturday, and it was a horrible call away from being in a dogfight in the fourth quarter.

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Could Rocky Top beat an Auburn team it already beat on the road two years ago? You have to think so. Although the FPI is not as high on them for that one, giving them a 14 percent chance of winning, there are circumstances that have to be taken into account.

Finally, let’s go to the Florida Gators. Despite how great they looked on Saturday, we can’t get past the fact that they have to travel to Knoxville in December. There is no way that team, running the spread offense, will be ready for the cold weather that could hit the Smokey Mountains during that time, and that gives Big Orange Country an outside shot.

Anyway, beating South Carolina wasn’t going to reset any expectations for Pruitt’s team. However, it upped projections for them in the FPI, and it got them one step closer to at least running the table where they should. They’ll have to continue to do that against Mizzou this weekend, as losing there would set back everything even further.

Advanced metrics now has Tennessee football likely at five wins and give them a real chance at six. If the Vols follow through on those realistic chances, extenuating circumstances should put give them two real opportunities for a seventh win as well, and we haven’t even counted a potential bowl game.

Simply put, without resetting expectations, the Vols cleared one major hurdle with South Carolina, and now they could be thinking much bigger. What looked like 5-5 or 6-4 could turn into 7-3 or better very quickly now.