Tennessee football fans are hungry to cheer for a winner, but is Jeremy Pruitt’s club ready to start winning big and make noise in the SEC East?
The 2019 college football season will mark Jeremy Pruitt’s second as the head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers. Coming off of a 5-7 debut, the hope for Pruitt and the Vols faithful in Knoxville are that the long-awaited turnaround and return to glory for Tennessee football can truly get underway.
While Jarrett Guarantano led the Volunteers to a pair of high-profile wins over Auburn and Kentucky, they were largely victimized by the SEC schedule that they’ll again face in the 2019 campaign. If they want to compete in 2019, that’ll mean finding a way to earn a better conference record.
Guarantano and running back Ty Chandler returning will help that a great deal. So too could new offensive coordinator Jim Chaney and wide receiver coach (and former Vols quarterback) Tee Martin. However, the health of Trey Smith — and the rest of the offensive line — and a weak defensive line could derail the plot in Knoxville.
So then, what would the best and worst-case scenarios for Tennessee football look like in 2019? Let’s take a look.
Tennessee football best-case scenario
- Aug. 31 – vs. Georgia State – W
- Sept. 7 – vs. BYU – W
- Sept. 14 – vs. Chattanooga – W
- Sept. 21 – at Florida – L
- Oct. 5 – vs. Georgia – L
- Oct. 12 – vs. Mississippi State – W
- Oct. 19 – at Alabama – L
- Oct. 26 – vs. South Carolina – W
- Nov. 2 – vs. UAB – W
- Nov. 9 – at Kentucky – W
- Nov. 23 – at Missouri – W
- Nov. 30 – vs. Vanderbilt – W
Record: 9-3 (5-3 SEC)
Even in the most ideal world, the Volunteers aren’t making it out of the SEC unscathed in the 2019 season. That’s even more assured when you look at the midseason schedule for Pruitt’s club.
Road matchups against Florida and Alabama are daunting tasks that seem impossible to surmount. And while they play Georgia at Neyland Stadium this year, the Bulldogs might have a little too much juice for the Vols to handle. Thus, those three are going down as loss even in the best-case scenario.
However, if the Volunteers are able to stay healthy and Chaney is able to revolutionize the offense that centers around a veteran quarterback (Guarantano), versatile running back (Chandler) and complete wide receiver (Marquez Callaway), this Tennessee team has the horses to compete as a mid-tier team out of the SEC this season.
Thus, a 9-3 record with all three losses coming in conference play is in the cards and would be a massive stride in the right direction for the program under Pruitt’s direction. More simply, it would also be a drastic upward swing from the sub-.500 season that they submitted in the head coach’s first year at the helm.
Tennessee football worst-case scenario
- Aug. 31 – vs. Georgia State – W
- Sept. 7 – vs. BYU – L
- Sept. 14 – vs. Chattanooga – W
- Sept. 21 – at Florida – L
- Oct. 5 – vs. Georgia – L
- Oct. 12 – vs. Mississippi State – L
- Oct. 19 – at Alabama – L
- Oct. 26 – vs. South Carolina – L
- Nov. 2 – vs. UAB – W
- Nov. 9 – at Kentucky – L
- Nov. 23 – at Missouri – W
- Nov. 30 – vs. Vanderbilt – W
Record: 5-7 (2-6 SEC)
While the best-case scenario could have Tennessee football winning nine games, their worst-case scenario, given their schedule, is submitting a similar performance to last season. If Pruitt and the Volunteers fail to make progress after last season, it would have to be considered a massive failure given the coaching upgrades and veteran talent.
As stated previously, health could be a determining factor in this. Not only do the Vols need to be healthy up front on both sides of the ball but they need Guarantano to stay healthy. The quarterback depth chart in Knoxville is not very, well, deep. Therefore, any kind of ailment that would slow or sideline the starting signal-caller would be hugely harmful to the cause.
Even if they don’t suffer a large number of injuries, Tennessee has to take a mental leap to get through this schedule. An early-season matchup with BYU is no cakewalk and, if the Vols aren’t ready, they could stumble. Furthermore, it’s not impossible for them to lose five straight games as they begin SEC play considering that’s the hardest part of their schedule.
The upside with the Vols is evident and undeniable. At the same time, they are one of the highest variance teams in college football and they don’t need a catastrophe to strike for their season to drastically swing towards the negative. That puts fans (and Pruitt) in a precarious position but it also makes Tennessee football a must-watch commodity in the 2019 season.