Tennessee Volunteers Could be Top 25 Team and SEC East Favorite in 2015 After Beating Iowa
After two years of rebuilding, recruiting, and developing, Coach Butch Jones might finally have the Tennessee Volunteers football program where he wants it.
Jones has got his quarterback, he has got his offensive line, he’s set on defense, and he is loaded with skill players. All of them began to come together at the end of the season, finishing on a 4-1 run with their only loss being to the Missouri Tigers, the SEC East champions.
It culminated with a dominant 45-28 thrashing of the Iowa Hawkeyes in the TaxSlayer Bowl for their first win since the 2007 season.
This all happened when Joshua Dobbs became the starter at quarterback. But Dobbs alone is not the reason behind the newfound Tennessee hype.
Jalen Hurd is a superstar running back who could become a potential Heisman candidate, the team is loaded with highly recruited receivers and offensive linemen who will all be sophomores or juniors next year and all have already played, stars like Curt Maggitt, Todd Kelly Jr., and Cameron Sutton are all coming back on defense, and Jones and his staff appear to have their system successfully fully installed.
Did I mention that his second straight Top 5 recruiting class appears to be likely?
That’s right, despite going just 7-6 the Vols all of a sudden appear to have all the pieces in place for an amazing run next year. They will likely be picked to finish second to Georgia in the SEC East.
But is it happening too fast?
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Keep in mind, Tennessee got to 6-6 after inserting Dobbs in at quarterback and finished the year 4-1. But the first of those wins was against South Carolina, when the Vols were down by two scores with three minutes left and then went on a tear, taking advantage of a Gamecocks defense that never fully adjusted to the 3-4 scheme.
Then came the dominant win against Kentucky. It was Kentucky. Who cares?
They lost to Missouri a week later, and the game was a bigger blowout than the 29-21 score indicated. And finally, they beat Vanderbilt by a touchdown to get bowl eligible and got to blow out Iowa in the TaxSlayer Bowl. Vanderbilt is terrible, and Iowa got to 7-5 this year by avoiding everybody good in the Big Ten East. They might have been the worst bowl team in the Big Ten.
So yes, Tennessee has plenty of reasons to be hyped about next year. The youth is finally coming around, as is the talent. But this is still a team that midway through the year had a loss at home to Florida and got blown out by Ole Miss.
Are we to believe that they will be immediate contenders next year?
Possibly, but it’s far too soon to tell. The last time Tennessee was the favorite to win the East was 2005. They stumbled to a 5-6 record that year, their first postseason miss since 1988 at the time and the season that launched arguably the worst 10 year stretch in Tennessee history.
The Vols appear to finally be coming out of that stretch. But they need to be a bit careful with expectations.
Oklahoma and Florida early next year will be good telling points of where the Vols will go. If they win both games, then they could be primed for a take-off and competing in the SEC East.
If they split, moderate improvement seems likely. If they lose both, a repeat of this year could be on the horizon. Vols fans are right to at least expect a split and probably expect to win both games.
But competing for the overall SEC title and national title still might be another year away.
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