Tennessee Football: Outback Bowl Predictions

After a slow start to the season, the Tennessee football team won their last 5 to secure a chance at their first 9 win season since 2006.

For a program that is as rich in tradition and resources like The University of Tennessee, 9 win season are supposed to be commonplace. Instead, though, the Tennessee football program has floundered in irrelevance since Phillip Fulmer agreed to step away after the 2008 season.

Lane Kiffin nearly set fire to Knoxville after one year on the job and a 7-6 record.

Tennessee football made a safe hire next, going with Derek Dooley. It didn’t pay off. Dooley won 15 games in his 3 seasons as the Volunteer’s head coach.

Most recently the Volunteers nabbed Butch Jones as their man and have been patiently waiting as he rebuilds the program. If the Tennessee football team can win their bowl, they will have seen their win total increase by 2 in each of Jones seasons as coach.

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Not bad for rebuilding brick by brick.

What stands in the way for Tennessee? The 10-2 #13 Northwestern Wildcats.

How Tennessee Can Win: No one is worried about Joshua Dobbs and Alvin Kamara being able to handle the rushing duties. Joshua Dobbs will be the key to victory here. He has not been called upon nearly as much as SEC fans anticipated in the preseason. His efficiency and limited turnovers have been huge in helping the Volunteers to 8 wins, however. If Dobbs completes over 60% of his passes and doesn’t commit a turnover, the Volunteers should win this one without a problem.

How Tennessee Can Lose: This one is a simple as motivation. See last year’s Peach Bowl if you need an example. Tennessee reeled off 5 straight wins against inferior opponents to end the season and has exactly 0 quality wins. They may just be happy to be in the bowl game. Northwestern sits at 10-2 with wins over Stanford, Duke and Wisconsin. Northwestern undoubtedly feels like they got snubbed by now making a New Year’s Six bowl. If Northwestern comes out motivated and Tennessee treats this game like a scrimmage, look out.

Predictions:

John: Tennessee has no quality wins. Northwestern is going to come out feeling slighted. It all depends on how Northwestern treats that slight. If they come out aggressive and looking to make a point, they’ll win this game. If they come out sluggish like this bowl is beneath them, however, they could fall behind quickly. My money is on Northwestern coming out aggressive and handing Tennessee football a disappointing loss. I’ll take Northwestern 23-17.

Ben: After coaching blunders cost Tennessee huge wins over Oklahoma and Florida, the Volunteers had every reason to fall back into a downward spiral. Led by Outkick the Coverage’s Clay Travis, everyone sporting the burnt orange crushed head coach Butch Jones. They were justified in their accusations, but since then, head coach Butch Jones has to be given credit for holding his team together. Yes, they had 4 losses on their schedule, and 2 of those losses came to teams in the college football playoff and they could’ve, would’ve, should’ve won both games. Their other 2 losses came to Florida and Arkansas by a combined 5 points. Northwestern is better than their program history, but I just don’t see them being able to match Tennessee’s talent. Tennessee uses this as a spring board into next year where I believe they’ll live up to the hype they had coming into this year. Tennessee wins 42-17.

Neal: I’ll take Northwestern here..

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