Tennessee football: Ranking potential bowls by likelihood

Tier 3: Unlikely but possible

6. Texas Bowl (Jan. 4; NRG Stadium; Houston, Texas)

Now we’re at the tiers of bowls targeting Tennessee football, between the Outback Bowl and the Liberty Bowl. Of all those, the Texas Bowl is tied for the best payout at over $6 million. However, the case for Tennessee football over Arkansas and Texas A&M in the Citrus Bowl is reversed here.

Both of those teams have a better record by one game over the Vols, and even if one magically got into a New Years Six bowl, the UK would get the Citrus Bowl bid over the next one. Then comes the Texas Bowl, and they’ll take either A&M or Arkansas for location reasons. UT isn’t going.

5. Liberty Bowl (Dec. 28; Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium; Memphis, Tenn.)

From a location perspective, this makes sense. However, the Liberty Bowl has the worst payout of all the bowls in the range that we’re talking about. No. 8 is the absolute worst spot the Vols can get, and that’s only possible if three teams don’t make New years Six bowls. It’s still a possibility, but from the other side of the Texas Bowl, it’s unlikely.