Tennessee football: Ranking all 12 games by difficulty on Vols’ 2022 schedule

Ambition is through the roof when it comes to the optimism behind Tennessee football entering Josh Heupel’s second season on the job. Some analysts are shooting as high as the Vols potentially going 11-1 this year, which would be the best season they’ve had since the start of the century over two decades ago.

A huge part of this is the perceived favorable schedule. UT plays three non-Power Five schools, two schools undergoing coaching changes and two schools that lost all of their key players from last year. That’s just six wins, then there are four other schools they beat last year.

Taking that into account, you could see 10 or 11 wins, but who would they lose to if that happen? Also, which teams are most likely to keep them from getting there. Let’s break that down now by looking at just how hard each team is. This is our ranking of all 12 games on Tennessee football’s 2022 schedule by difficulty.

12. Akron Zips

Saturday, Sept. 17; Neyland Stadium; Knoxville, Tenn.

If this were next year, the Akron Zips would probably be two spots higher. They have a bright future under new head coach Joe Moorhead, who got a raw deal when he was fired by the Mississippi State Bulldogs. However, Moorhead is in his first year with the program, and that’s what keeps Akron down here.

This is a program that went 2-10 last year and has won a grand total of three games the past three years, going 3-27 during that time. They haven’t made a bowl game since 2017, when Terry Bowden was coaching. The Tom Arth era was just a disaster the past three years.

One thing that may make Akron tough is the fact that it’s a trap game between what you might consider two toss-up games for Tennessee football, which we’ll get to. Even with that, though, a team that has been so horrendous the past three years that is undergoing a coaching change would naturally be the easiest game on UT’s schedule.