Tennessee football replacing BYU with Virginia in 2023 undoes another Dave Hart move

One thing’s clear at this point. Danny White didn’t like how Dave Hart set up future Tennessee football schedules when he was athletic director. For the second time in less than a year, White has replaced a non-conference opponent in an upcoming UT season.

The Vols replaced their 2023 opener at the BYU Cougars with a game against the Virginia Cavaliers, according to a report from the university Monday. UT and UVA will face off Saturday, Sept. 2 in Nashville, Tenn., at Nissan Stadium.

This was supposed to be the second part of a home-and-home series between the two, with the first having been played back in 2019 on Rocky Top. Tennessee football lost that game in overtime to fall to 0-2 on the season at that point.

White’s move follows one made last September to remove the Army Black Knights from the third game of the Vols’ 2022 schedule. Rocky Top replaced them with the Akron Zips. That was something Phillip Fulmer was even trying to do.

At this point, it’s getting pretty clear White isn’t a fan of Hart’s scheduling, and honestly, he has reason not to be. As we wrote back in September, it made no sense to schedule a team like Army, and the Vols were smart to get rid of them. Hart

Army runs the triple-option, and UT would have to face them between the Pittsburgh Panthers, a pass-heavy offense, and the start of SEC play. Preparing for that offense in the middle of your schedule is always hard, and this would have made it harder.

Now, this one wasn’t as essential to remove. Hart scheduled it back in February of 2017, just as he was ending his tenure as the Vols’ athletic director and less than a week before John Currie, who would only last nine months, was hired.

After BYU, Tennessee football returns home to face the Austin Peay Governors a surefire win, and since there’s no game before that one, traveling to Utah for this matchup wasn’t going to throw their schedule for a loop. However, there were always better deals to make.

Getting UVA in Nashville is certainly a better deal. The Cavaliers will be entering their second season under new head coach Tony Elliott, and while they may have promise by that point, they will not have hit their stride with him at the helm yet.

Meanwhile, this game is a great way for the Vols to bring in revenue, playing in Nashville for what is effectively a home crowd. Finally, though, it could mean that the SEC is about to change more quickly than we thought. What if the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners join in 2023?

Already, the Vols’ rotating SEC West opponent that year is brutal, the Texas A&M Aggies. However, if the league changes with Texas and OU and either goes to nine games or adds the Auburn Tigers and Alabama Crimson Tide to the East, the Vols’ slate is about to get tougher.

Add in the fact that the league could go to nine games, and you could see Tennessee football playing five road games within the conference the first year. Should that happen, they obviously need to avoid a sixth road game. Simply put, this is a good idea no matter what.