Tennessee football schedule: The 1 potential trap game facing Vols

Even on the long road to recovery, the Tennessee football team must avoid the trap game.

With Josh Heupel taking over a tough situation with the Tennessee football program, every single win the Volunteers can get this fall will be precious.

Tennessee went a deplorable 3-7 during Jeremy Pruitt’s final year in Knoxville. This came after a 2-0 start, ending with a victory over instate rival Vanderbilt and a myriad of recruiting violations that resulted in his untimely termination. While Tennessee may not push for a winning season this year, the Vols have to do whatever it takes to not let the trap game get the best of them in 2021.

Tennessee football’s potential trap game for 2021 college season

Right off the bat, there is no way the Vols will beat their three biggest SEC rivals this season in Alabama, Florida or Georgia. Drawing Pitt in the non-conference will not be easy either. So as we look at the Vols’ 2021 season schedule, we need to look at games that are winnable that Tennessee cannot blow under any circumstances if Heupel and his staff want to push for .500.

Should the Vols go 4-0 in non-conference, which is possible because the Pitt game is at Neyland, that means Tennessee needs to go no worse than 2-6 in SEC play. With three guaranteed losses there, we must look at the other five for the potential trap game. With Vanderbilt at the end of the year at home and rival Kentucky on the road coming off a bye, it is not one to those two games.

This leaves us with the Vols’ first three games of October to potentially serve as their trap game: At Missouri on Oct. 2, home vs. South Carolina on Oct. 9 and home vs. Ole Miss on Oct. 16. The South Carolina game does not feel like it because it is sandwiched between the other two. Keep in mind that South Carolina is also a rebuilding team under its new head coach in Shane Beamer.

You could argue for the Ole Miss game, but this is one the Tennessee faithful will have circled on the calendar, as this is the unwelcome homecoming for former Vols head coach Lane Kiffin. Though he last coached in Knoxville over a decade ago, some people will never forget that one-year run of his at UT. That leaves us with the road date vs. Missouri as the Volunteers’ trap game.

What makes the Mizzou game the quintessential trap game for Tennessee is multi-faceted. One, it comes the week after Tennessee’s SEC opener at Florida. Two, one of Tennessee’s three wins a season ago came over the Tigers in Knoxville. Three, Mizzou will likely battle Kentucky for third place in the SEC East this year. And four, an early game in CoMo is always tough for the visitor.

Though Tennessee is not good enough to overlook anyone at this time, it is hard to imagine the Volunteers giving the SEC East newcomers the respect they probably deserve. Beating Mizzou would go a long way towards the Vols reaching or possibly exceeding .500 in Heupel’s first year at Rocky Top. Then again, the trap game always come back to haunt you when you least expect it.

Even a rebuilding program like Tennessee has the proverbial trap game on their season schedule.

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