I know its been awhile since I made a blog post about the Vols or the Titans. Had some things going on in the real world that made getting some blogs out a bit difficult. But I am back…and so are the Vols.
After last week’s loss to Georgia and subsequent screwing of the Vols by the CFB committee, I thought there was a slim chance Tennessee would make it into the CFB Playoff in the first year of its inception. We don’t have to go into all the arguments as to why UT being the first team out was a reflection of how dumb or just incompetent the committee is, but there was a lot. (Honestly, did anyone think Ole Miss or BYU or Indiana deserved to be in over the Vols? Objectively, probably not).
Well guess what? “Ball don’t lie” as the kids say these days. Tennessee just needed one possible shake-up during Week 13 to get back into the race. And we got more than a few. Lane Kiffin doing Lane Kiffin things and losing to Florida. Bama fans realizing Nick Saban is gone and getting pummeled at OU (hard to play there at night, isn’t it?). IU got their doors blown off by Ohio State, and A&M dropped a sure-thing conversion in multiple OTs to lose to Auburn.
The so call “experts” predict UT to be anywhere from the 8-10 seed come Tuesday when the rankings are released. Have another shake-up in the final week of the regular season or during the conference championships, and there is a possibility the Vols host a playoff game. Who saw that coming after the snubbing we got during the seeding release after the UGA game?
Only one thing stands in our way. Vanderbilt. I got to give credit where credit is due. Clark Lea has done a good job in his fourth year at Vanderbilt. They are currently sitting at 6-5 with some good wins and close losses. Obviously, their biggest win of the year came over Alabama in early October. They have also beaten Virginia Tech, Auburn, and Kentucky. They lost to Texas by 3 and LSU last night by 7.
This is not the same Vanderbilt teams where you expect to go into Nashville and win by 28+. I would imagine that Coach Lea will have his team prepared. Vanderbilt has already become bowl eligible, and the only thing on their minds is beating their rival and ruining the Vols chances at going to the first ever expanded CFB playoff.
So the 11/30 matchup in Nashville has now become a de-facto playoff game for Tennessee. Win, and you’re in. Lose, and you are squarely out of the CFB playoff and honestly don’t deserve to go.
Tennessee has a better team than Vanderbilt. They have better players, and I would like to think they have better coaching. But during these rivalry games anything can happen. The last UT-Vandy game I went to in Nashville was the infamous 2016 game. All the Vols had to do to go to the Sugar Bowl was to beat Vandy. Instead, we squandered that game away despite having a team stacked with NFL talent.
I refuse to let my BVS get the better of me this week. This isn’t a Butch Jones, or Derek Dooley, or Jeremy Pruitt coached team that will be taking the field on Saturday. Josh Heupel is a better coach than all three of those coaches put together. But if there is one thing we learned last night, winning on the road in the SEC is tough. Even if it is at Vanderbilt where it will most likely be 75-80% orange.
Let’s hope the Vols can go into Nashville, get the W, make the playoff in year-1, and use that momentum to catapult the program even farther along than it has come the past four years. Oh yeah, and let’s make their stadium look like this:
