On Thursday, when we first took a look at the weekly bowl projections, Tennessee had a near-consensus prediction to land in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl on Dec. 27 in Jacksonville, FL. That projection came from On3 Sports’ Brett McMurphy, ESPN’s Kyle Bonagura, and USA Today’s Erick Smith. The only expert that we looked at who didn’t choose the Gator Bowl was ESPN’s Mark Schlabach, who had Tennessee tagged to the ReliaQuest Bowl on Dec. 31 in Tampa, FL.
On Saturday morning, McMurphy shook up his projection for the Volunteers. The new prediction comes just one day before we’ll officially know where Tennessee is heading for its postseason game.
McMurphy’s Saturday morning projection has Tennessee in the Music City Bowl from Nashville, TN. He’s got Tennessee lined up to play Illinois in the Dec. 30 game from Nissan Stadium. On a random side note, Tennessee’s basketball team is actually lined up to play Illinois on Saturday night in Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena. McMurphy’s projection suggests that the Vols and Fighting Illini may match up in the same city and in the same month in two different major sports.
McMurphy’s new Gator Bowl prediction sees Missouri taking on Georgia Tech.
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In what many have predicted, including McMurphy, it seems likely that Texas will be selected to the Citrus Bowl and Vanderbilt will be selected to the ReliaQuest Bowl. That leaves Missouri, Tennessee, and, to a lesser extent, LSU, in the race for the remaining SEC bowl games.
Missouri and Tennessee both finished the season at 8-4, but the Tigers snuck into the final spot of the latest college football rankings, whereas the Vols fell out of the rankings entirely. LSU finished the season at 7-5.
McMurphy is the only analyst out of the four that we previously looked at who has updated their projections so far. So while it may not be as much to go off of in comparison to Thursday’s update, it’s still an intriguing move that could foreshadow Tennessee’s eventual bowl plans.
Tennessee previously played in the Music City Bowl to close down the 2021 season in Josh Heupel’s first season with the program. The Vols lost an overtime heartbreaker to Purdue by a score of 48-45.
Stay tuned to Rocky Top Insider for more Tennessee Football postseason news over the next 24-48 hours.
