For the first time in four seasons the University of Tennessee football team will be playing a postseason bowl. Now, they just have to find out which one it’s going to be. Sunday the bowl pairings will be announced and while the Vols have no say in the matter (the Southeastern Conference matches teams with bowls), they do have a few ideas. Monday afternoon Jimmy Hyams tweeted that UT sent its top three bowl choices to the SEC office: the Music City Bowl in Nashville, the Liberty Bowl in Memphis and the Belk Bowl in Charlotte, N.C.
Tennessee should be a prized commodity for any bowl, especially that trio of relatively local games, as the Vols will bring thousands of orange-clad faithful with them wherever they go. Nashville and Charlotte are both less than four hours away from the Knoxville campus. Memphis is a longer trip, but still under six hours. The Liberty Bowl has the biggest payout at $2.4 million, so that probably moves it up Tennessee’s wish list. The Belk Bowl pays $1.7 million and the Music City Bowl pays $1.8 million. It’s not a bad problem to have for a team that has only one player, redshirt senior punter Matt Darr, who was even on its last bowl team.
The Vols last played in the Liberty Bowl in 1986, beating Minnesota 21-14. Tennessee’s last bowl appearance was actually in the Music City Bowl, losing to North Carolina 30-27, ironically, the same season that the Derek Dooley-led Volunteers wanted to dodge paying the Tarheels in the season opener and bought out their game, replacing them with Buffalo.
The Belk Bowl, which was formerly the Meineke Car Care Bowl, the Continental Tire Bowl and the Queen City Bowl has never welcomed the Volunteers before, under any of its monikers.
Jones, The First Believer
One person predicted Tennessee would find itself playing in the postseason, and he was celebrating on the sideline with his team after the Vols beat Vanderbilt 24-17 last Saturday.
“I had great confidence in them and they’ve shown great resiliency,” Tennessee head coach Butch Jones said. “And they’ve continued to get better and better. We knew we had a tough stretch but if we just focused on the process. A lot of times people quit when you’re right there, but we had some individuals step up and impact the football game.”
Tennessee’s bowl hopes looked bleak early, with the team facing a murderer’s row in an seven-game stretch, its only break coming in a 45-10 laugher against FCS Chattanooga. Tennessee lost five of the six, finally ending their streak in a 45-42 overtime victory over South Carolina that would turn the season around.
“We’re learning how to win and winning is very fragile,” Jones said. “We’re learning how to close games out. We didn’t play our best football at Vanderbilt however we found a way to close the game out and get win No. 6. Now we’re going to a bowl game.”
Offensive Struggles
For the second consecutive week the Tennessee offense struggled to score points, but unlike the game against Missouri and it’s suffocating defense, on paper Vanderbilt should not have presented that same kind of problem. The Commodores, ranked 10th in the conference, were able to hold the Vols to just 292 yards of offense and less than 100 yards passing. UT turned the ball over four times and averaged just 4.0 yards per play. It’s an issue, and one the Volunteers will have at least three weeks to fix.
Notebook
- Cameron Sutton’s 76-yard punt return for a touchdown was the first since Cordarrelle Patrerson returned a punt 81 yards against Vandy in 2012
- In his two starts since replacing suspended A.J. Johnson, freshman Jakob Johnson hasn’t done much to distinguish himself. Jakob Johnson has a total of six tackles, with just two solos. A.J. Johnson averaged more than 10 tackles a game
- Senior cornerback Justin Coleman has received an invitation to play in the 90th East-West Shrine game on Jan. 17 in St. Petersburg, Fla.
