Tennessee football to cause chaos in 2022, writer says, but Vols should shoot higher

Having the chance to play spoiler against some of the best teams in the nation in 2022 would be considered a huge step forward for Tennessee football. Looking ahead to the season, many experts are already high on their ability to do that.

Will Backus of 247Sports named the Vols as one of his nine teams poised to cause chaos in 2022. He went as far as suggesting that they could upset the Alabama Crimson Tide or the Georgia Bulldogs if those teams aren’t careful when facing Rocky Top.

Two other SEC teams join Tennessee football on Backus’ list: The Ole Miss Rebels and the South Carolina Gamecocks. His standards range from just being a team that pulls off upsets to one that shocks their way into the playoff race. Backus emphasized the Vols’ defense amidst all the talk of offense as his reasoning. Here’s a bit of what he wrote.

"Their defensive line is underrated, especially if defensive tackle Elijah Simmons can come on strong and, barring an injury to Jeremy Banks, the linebacker group is above average. Tennessee still needs to see vast improvement in the secondary, but it landed a pair of transfers in Ohio State’s Andre Turrentine and Georgia Tech’s Wesley Walker that should help immediately at nickel and safety, respectively."

Based on those statements, it’s clear that Backus has the Vols in the able to upset elite teams categories. To his credit, he named arguably the two best teams far and away next year as the teams UT could give a scare to, so it’s not like he isn’t respecting Rocky Top.

However, this team has every reason to think higher. Rather than envision the chance to play spoiler, they should be envisioning the possibilities if they do pull off one of those upsets. That’s especially the case given how they’re starting the season.

UT’s first five games involve two Group of Five schools, a Pittsburgh Panthers team that lost the crucial members who made up the offense driving last year’s ACC Championships group and two SEC teams who finished 6-7 last year and have new head coaches: The Florida Gators and LSU Tigers. A 5-0 start is on the table.

If that happens and Tennessee football then upsets Alabama, who come to town the week after they face LSU, then it’ll be beyond time to talk about potential upsets. At that point, the Vols will indeed be in the College Football Playoff conversation.

After Alabama are the UT Martin Skyhawks and Kentucky Wildcats at home, so 8-0 would then be a real possibility. However, let’s say they do lose that game and are 7-1 entering November with the Georgia Bulldogs heading to town.

Well, at that point, this would be considered a game to decide first place in the SEC East. Also, if the Vols won and were 7-1 at the time, talk of the College Football Playoff would be back in business with them closing the season out against the Missouri Tigers, South Carolina and the Vanderbilt Commodores.

Simply put, the start of the schedule gives Tennessee football a chance to have a ton of momentum down the stretch of the season. The Vols could be in the race for things they haven’t come close to in over 20 years at this point. As a result, causing chaos may be too low of a bar for Josh Heupel’s second team.