Author Archives: Will Shelton

In 2011, Tennessee went to #8 Arkansas as a 15-point underdog. Tyler Bray had a broken thumb, Derek Dooley had burned Justin Worley’s redshirt, and the Vols hadn’t scored more than seven points in their last three SEC contests. I went to the game to visit friends, plans made months before the season began, but still…you tell yourself, or at least I did, that you want to be there when it starts going the other way. When it starts going right.

It did not. The Vols lost 49-7, giving up a punt return in the process that still graces my Twitter feed two or three times a year. What I told myself after it was over was that maybe there was some historical value in being there when things were at their worst: we knew Bray would be back soon, Justin Hunter would be back the following year, surely this was the bottom.

That was ten years ago, the Vols turning a +15 line into a 42-point loss, a performance 27 points worse than the Vegas expectation. And by that metric, that 49-7 loss in Fayetteville barely cracks the top five worst such losses of the post-Fulmer era.

These are the bad surprises, and as you’ll see, they correlate directly to a rise in your blood pressure. They’re the ones that make you question everything, no matter what year the coach is in, and want a fresh start.

On the other hand, the good surprises – though certainly fewer in these last dozen seasons – provide that breath of fresh air, crisp and cool.

How many of each will we see in Josh Heupel’s first season?

One of the great lessons of this exercise, of course, is that Vegas often has a hard time getting the right read on year one. I used the closing lines from covers.com in looking back at past seasons. For example, Lane Kiffin’s 2009 Vols were above or below the Vegas line by at least 12 points seven times, and off by 18.5 or more points four times. Dooley’s Vols were above or below the closing line by at least 11 points seven times the following year. He and Butch Jones ran into a strength of schedule problem in year one, with Jones in particular getting lines against Oregon, Missouri, and Auburn that just couldn’t be high enough.

And, as you’ll see, no one was harder to predict than Jeremy Pruitt’s Vols in 2018, who went above or below the Vegas line by 20+ points five different times.

So yeah: teams can be streaky, Vegas doesn’t have a feel, etc. But a lot of it is the when of it all: did your team vastly underperform in September, or in November?

And consider how valuable some of these games were in sparking hope early, even if ultimately unrealized, in the last 12 years.

Here are the five best and worst Tennessee performances relative to the closing line in the post-Fulmer era.

Five Worst Surprises

5. 2011 Arkansas: Vols +15, lost 49-7, off by 27

As mentioned, turns out it could get worse than this.

4. 2018 Missouri: Vols +5.5, lost 50-17, off by 27.5

In hindsight, a ginormous red flag: seven days after beating Kentucky fairly easily, Jarrett Guarantano got knocked out of the game early. Josh Heupel was at Central Florida, but Drew Lock – and Derek Dooley – were still around at Mizzou. Pruitt’s first team needed one win to get bowl eligible, and instead ate a 50-17 beat down from Missouri, which didn’t feel like doom and gloom at the time…but then underperformed the Vegas line by 21.5 the following week at Vanderbilt. Again, if you’re going to go this route in year one, try to take it in September instead.

3. 2017 Georgia: Vols +10, lost 41-0, off by 31

A clear cut, “Well, this is over now,” moment for Butch Jones and Tennessee on the national stage. And as it turned out, a hard turn toward the off-ramp for Jones and Tennessee period. Some good feelings from 2015 and 2016 (and the final snap loss at Florida) could still be hoped for leading up to kickoff, but not after.

2. 2019 Georgia State: Vols -24.5, lost 38-30, off by 32.5

The 2019 Vols did a good job making us forget about this game by January. But the fullness of Jeremy Pruitt’s tenure will make sure we remember it, along with…

1. 2020 Kentucky: Vols -6.5, lost 34-7, off by 33.5

Turns out this one felt about as bad as it should have. In the context of that Arkansas game ten years ago, by this metric not only do you have four worse performances in the ten years since, but four worse performances in the last four seasons, with by far the two worst ones in the last two years. This one goes squarely in the, “Not only has it been bad for a long time, but it’s been getting worse,” pile.

Which means, one of these would be a whole lot of fun:

Five Best Surprises

5. 2019 South Carolina: Vols +4, won 41-21, off by 24

Two special teams touchdowns will do this for you. The Gamecocks weren’t great, and Tennessee spent the rest of 2019’s winning streak in close game after close game. But this one was just pure fun, and contained more highlight reel plays than…well, I mean, how far back do you have to go? I can remember four or five plays from this game right away. Can you remember four or five plays that went right in any game for Tennessee last year, or even in the 2018 Kentucky win? You need days like this along the way: beating South Carolina isn’t a feather in your cap at the end of 2019, but it’s hard to measure the joy and breath of fresh air it gave along the way.

4. 2009 Georgia: Vols +1, won 45-19, off by 27

Others have tried, but no one has done it better in their first year post-Fulmer than Lane Kiffin on this day. After stumbling out of the gate against UCLA (favored by 10.5, lost by 4), Tennessee and Jonathan Crompton turned in a performance that felt like pure validation. It’s been long enough now that the thing I used to say about this game – “Doesn’t count when your coach leaves in the middle of the night,” essentially – feels unfair and incomplete. It’s worth noting what this kind of win could mean; I don’t expect the 2021 Vols to be in the +1 neighborhood with any of our biggest rivals this year, but if Josh Heupel’s team busts up, say, Pittsburgh by 26 points? That validation word will get a test drive.

3. 2014 Utah State: Vols -3.5, won 38-7, off by 27.5

A game no one remembers because Justin Worley ceased to be the starting quarterback midway through the year, and Josh Dobbs – to his credit – wrote his own narrative. But the year two season opener for Butch Jones saw Chuckie Keaton and the memories of Tennessee underperforming the line so often in 2013 give us a relative toss=up on opening night…and the Vols just flat dominated on both sides of the ball. Among the millions of words that could be written about Butch Jones’ time is the way the 2014 Florida loss just made you disregard all the good the Vols did in starting with this win, then Arkansas State, then almost beating Georgia.

2. 2015 Northwestern: Vols -9.5, won 45-6, off by 29.5

Despite all the near misses of 2015, it was indeed great to be a Tennessee Vol from January 1 through mid-October of 2016. This is still Tennessee’s largest win over a ranked opponent since 1990, and rightfully set the stage for an off-season of real championship conversation.

1. 2010 Ole Miss: Vols -2.5, won 52-14, off by 35.5

Behold the power of, “We’ve found our quarterback.” Tyler Bray won at Memphis in his first start, but that was Memphis. Ole Miss wasn’t any good either, as it turned out, but neither was a 3-6 Tennessee team in the moment. Tennessee’s first three offensive possessions went 80-yard touchdown, punt, 3 plays 86 yards (all to Denarius Moore) for a touchdown, then an Eric Gordon pick six. Prentiss Wagner got another pick six on the Rebels’ second play of the third quarter. Bray threw for 323 yards, three scores, and no interceptions. And the hope we found here really stayed alive for quite some time, through Bray’s injury until the Kentucky loss at the end of the next season. There would be no surprise more pleasant for Tennessee fans this fall than the starting quarterback putting up a day like this in a game considered a toss-up at kickoff.

In each of the last two SEC expansions, Tennessee had no reason to worry. Arkansas and South Carolina weren’t perceived as serious threats in 1992, nor Missouri in 2012. Of course, those teams went 3-0 against the Vols in their SEC debuts, so what do we know.

But now, Texas and Oklahoma and Tennessee’s continual slide makes for a different conversation for us. I’m not sure any of us know how to define success for Tennessee in a 16-team SEC. But perhaps it’s helpful to look back at how teams on Tennessee’s level have defined success in the last expansion.

The top tier has won enough, and recently, to not be concerned with newcomers just yet. The Vols used to be in this group. If the success conversation begins with Atlanta, this group generally finds themselves in the thick of that conversation more often than not.

Here’s a rough estimate of not only division titles, but how many times each team had a realistic chance to get to Atlanta:

Getting to Atlanta 2012-2020

Alabama Tier

• Alabama: Six SEC West titles, nine total chances to win (100%)

Traditional Powers, Modern Success

• Auburn: Two SEC West titles, five total chances to win (55.6%)
• Florida: Three SEC East titles, six total chances to win (66.7%)
• Georgia: Four SEC East titles, six total chances to win (66.7%)
• LSU: One SEC West title, four total chances to win (44.4%)

Three of these teams also carry recent-enough history from before expansion to buoy them: Florida won it all in 2006 & 2008, Auburn in 2010, and LSU played for it in 2011. And on the tail end, some disappointing finishes for Les Miles got wiped away by Ed Orgeron and Joe Burrow in 2019.

What about the next group down? Among these eight schools, only Missouri actually won a division title post-expansion. Each of them had at least one real chance to get there. And we’ve added a note on how often they changed head coaches as another barometer of success:

The Middle Tier

• Arkansas: One chance to win (2015), Four head coaches
• Kentucky: One chance to win (2018), Two head coaches
• Ole Miss: Two chances to win (2014-15), Three head coaches
• Mississippi State: One chance to win (2014), Three head coaches
• Missouri: Two SEC East titles (2013-14), two total chances to win, Three head coaches
• South Carolina: Three chances to win (2013-14, 2017), Three head coaches
• Tennessee: Two chances to win (2015-16), Four head coaches
• Texas A&M: Three chances to win (2013-14, 2020), Two head coaches

Vanderbilt Tier

• Vanderbilt: Zero chances to win, Three head coaches

Here’s the question: how many of these programs felt like success was attainable in the last decade?

The schools that really only made one pass at Atlanta all have different bonuses. Arkansas was nationally elite the year before expansion before Bobby Petrino’s motorcycle cost them. Mississippi State didn’t just almost get to Atlanta, they spent four weeks at #1 in 2014 and earned a New Year’s Six invite. And Kentucky has become the most stable non-Alabama job in the SEC during this run, with Stoops working a slow burn to a winner-take-all game with Georgia in 2018.

Ole Miss had two chances to win with Hugh Freeze, then lost him to scandal. Tennessee was any number of plays away from winning the SEC East had they beaten Florida in Gainesville in 2015, and gave away a 2-0 lead on Florida and Georgia in 2016. They are more isolated moments of almost-success.

South Carolina came into expansion with a division title in 2010 and plenty of momentum. The Gamecocks had every opportunity to get back to Atlanta in 2012 and 2013, and did catch what would’ve been a winner-take-all game with Georgia in 2017 considering they beat Florida the following week. But overall their success is certainly tilted toward the front half of the last decade, thus Muschamp out and Beamer in. Missouri is the hardest one to place, I think: a pair of division titles, then a 1-7 finish in league play the following year with Pinkel’s retirement. Barry Odom had some close losses in a 4-4 finish in 2018, but they never really threatened, thus new coach last year.

And then there’s Texas A&M, who threatened with Johnny Football then didn’t again after the month of September. They’re the clearest-cut example of the road simply going through Alabama now: an incredible year last season, but effectively over in week two when the Tide won 52-24.

Of this group, I think certainly A&M thinks they can get to Atlanta. Tennessee has the historical expectation. South Carolina proved they could flirt with it regularly under Spurrier. I would imagine Missouri believes it can still be done since they did it twice. And Lane Kiffin talks often about the ceiling that drew him to Oxford.

As for the rest? Is the expectation at Arkansas, Kentucky, and Mississippi State to get to Atlanta at least once? Is that healthy or reasonable?

I’m comforted by the fact that, other than Vanderbilt, everybody got close at least once in the last expansion, and 10 of the league’s 14 teams have multiple seasons that are legitimate what-ifs in that same span.

You can’t what-if it forever, of course. But what is success going to be in a 16-team league? Atlanta? A spot in a 12-team playoff?

The Vols, of course, haven’t sniffed a hypothetical 12-team playoff since 2007, and probably wouldn’t have made that field since 2003. But the rest of that group? Arkansas would’ve been in in 2011, and in expansion times:

Mid-Tier SEC Teams in a Hypothetical 12-Team Playoff 2012-20 (BCS/CFP data)

• 2012: South Carolina, Texas A&M
• 2013: Missouri, South Carolina
• 2014: Ole Miss, Mississippi State
• 2020: Texas A&M

Kentucky would’ve just missed in 2018. The only teams that really haven’t come close during that span are Arkansas, Vanderbilt, and of course…Tennessee.

Is there something to mid-tier teams not having as much success since 2014 or so? I’m not sure. And the Vols have plenty of room to grow their own definition of success under Josh Heupel.

But it’s valuable – in Fayetteville, Lexington, Columbia, Starkville, Oxford, and Knoxville – to believe your team, yes your team, can have a shot. And that conversation has to stay alive into November every now and then.

How likely are these programs to find success in this brave new world? I’m not sure. But I do find it somewhat comforting that all of them came close at least once, and most more often than that, in the last expansion.

As first impressions go, Josh Heupel probably couldn’t ask for a better opener among FBS foes. Bowling Green went 0-5 in the MAC last season, losing by an average margin of 45-11. Only UMass was worse in SP+ last season, and the Falcons are 125th in 2021 preseason SP+ projections.

Of course, it’s not just that the last time we saw both Bowling Green and UMass, they almost beat us. There was plenty of, “Finally, a cupcake opener!” for Georgia State just two years ago. You never know.

But there’s at least a chance Josh Heupel’s Vols put up something ridiculous in week one. That would lead us straight into the overreaction trap for the first real temperature check of his tenure just nine days later. Pitt’s a story for another day. For now, if the Vols do throw out a big number on Bowling Green to open the Josh Heupel era, it would certainly look and feel different than what we’ve seen recently.

In the post-Fulmer era, the Vols have scored 40+ points in regulation vs an FBS opponent 22 times in 12 years. Ten of those belong to Josh Dobbs; seven more to Tyler Bray. Jonathan Crompton did it twice in the back half of 2009.

Two of the other three involved weirdness: Western Kentucky’s “let’s turn it over on every play!” strategy in 2013, which helped Butch Jones get off to a nice start in his second game. And South Carolina two years ago, when the Vols scored 41 points by way of two special teams touchdowns. That leaves Vanderbilt last year as the final example, when the Vols did get a pick six from Bryce Thompson (and also, it was 2020 Vanderbilt).

Between Dobbs and that special teams flourish against South Carolina two years ago, Tennessee rode the struggle bus hard. In regulation, the Vols never even scored 30 points against FBS competition in 2017. They did it only once in 2018, again aided by a defensive score, in the signature win at Auburn (30). And in 2019, they scored 30+ against Georgia State (30), South Carolina (41), and UAB (30).

So, bump it up to 31+ points, and 2019 South Carolina is the only time the Vols hit that mark vs an FBS foe in regulation for three straight years.

This is one reason that early start felt so good last year: 31 points at South Carolina, 35 against Mizzou. Obviously neither of those teams were world-beaters, but Tennessee’s offense got the job done against middle-tier SEC East teams in a way it did not in the previous three seasons. And then, of course, it did not for the rest of the non-Vanderbilt schedule last fall.

This is perhaps the silverest of linings for Josh Heupel’s brand of football this year: Tennessee has been so bad on offense the last four years, it won’t take much to make us feel good. And nothing feels better in football than points.

So man, 40+, even on Bowling Green, would feel really good compared to what we’ve seen recently. Hit 50+, and that’s only been done vs FBS in regulation 10 times post-Fulmer (half of those are Dobbs).

And 60+? That’s been done once, and done in part because Josh Heupel was on the other sideline: in 2016, Tennessee beat Missouri 63-37 in a game featuring 1,349 total yards, and the Tigers running 110 total plays.

I don’t know exactly what will happen against Bowling Green, who the quarterback will be, or if he can find a way to add his name to the list with Crompton, Bray, and Dobbs over the last 13 years.

But I think there’s a chance we could have some fun right away.

Here’s the full list:

Tennessee 40+ Points (vs FBS in regulation) Post-Fulmer

• 2020 Vanderbilt: 42
• 2019 South Carolina: 41
• 2016 Virginia Tech: 45
• 2016 Kentucky: 49
• 2016 Missouri: 63
• 2015 Bowling Green: 59
• 2015 Kentucky: 52
• 2015 Vanderbilt: 53
• 2015 Northwestern: 45
• 2014 South Carolina: 45 (42 in regulation)
• 2014 Kentucky: 50
• 2014 Iowa: 45
• 2013 Western Kentucky: 52
• 2012 Akron: 47
• 2012 Georgia: 44
• 2012 Troy: 55
• 2011 Cincinnati: 45
• 2011 Buffalo: 41
• 2010 Memphis: 50
• 2010 Ole Miss: 52
• 2009 Georgia: 45
• 2009 Memphis: 56

It’s July 9, which means we’re still deep in the land of power rankings and projections. Phil Steele’s mammoth magazine usually provides some off-season content, but one of the biggest red flags for me personally is how little Tennessee shows up in it at all this year. Stay tuned.

The most fun you can have with these things is projected win totals, both for the expectations conversation and comparing yourself to your peers. ESPN updated their FPI rankings and projected win totals this week, and of note in the SEC:

• 11 wins: Alabama
• 10 wins: Georgia, Texas A&M
• 9 wins: Florida
• 7 wins: Auburn, Kentucky, LSU, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Missouri

That’s a lot in the middle. Like, a lot a lot.

Seven teams projected to hit the same number is the most for any power five conference. And the spectrum is a little short of what it actually could be, from Auburn’s 7.2 projected wins to Missouri’s 6.5. These are regular season win totals, so your theoretical seven wins could become eight in one of the SEC’s group of six bowls.

It’s surprisingly balanced, at least to me, for the SEC: four teams from the West, three from the East. And depending on your take of Auburn’s trip to Penn State on September 18, it’s not a projection of seven wins because any of these teams face insurmountable odds in a non-conference game. Kentucky and Ole Miss both play Louisville, LSU opens in the Rose Bowl, Mississippi State hosts NC State, the Vols host Pitt, and Mizzou is at Boston College.

There’s a long-standing joke about parity in the ACC Coastal, and that league does offer the closest comparison in FPI:

• 12 wins: Clemson
• 9 wins: Miami, North Carolina
• 7 wins: Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh, Boston College, Louisville, NC State, Virginia

No other league has more than four teams projected to hit the same number. And Tennessee’s other SEC East contemporaries are further down the list: South Carolina at five wins, Vanderbilt at four (and Arkansas at six to round out the league).

I’m sure some of these SEC teams will hit eight wins and some six. But the actual projection is one that Tennessee would take: a 7-5 regular season with a (theoretical) chance to get to eight wins via one of those group of six bowls would represent the best on-paper year one for any Tennessee coach since Fulmer. It continues to appear from a distance that so much of Tennessee’s final record will come down to what they do against the group of teams in this same projection range, which means we’ll get more meaningful action right away with Pitt, Missouri, South Carolina, and Ole Miss all on the schedule in the first seven Saturdays.

One of the conversations I’ve encountered most in these last few weeks is how we’ve become accustomed to bad news following good. We’re living a bit of it right now until Tony Vitello signs an extension. It’s not just that football has trended down over 13 years…it’s that none of those 13 seasons found a way to live on in our memories. It’s something we wrote about when the Butch Jones era looked like it was headed for the off-ramp after a 41-0 loss to Georgia in 2017: you can create a moment in any season, but ultimately the season itself has to be considered a success for that moment to last.

Tennessee’s baseball team created plenty of moments this year, including a walk-off grand slam that should be talked about by anyone following Tennessee baseball a decade from now. We haven’t been doing this long enough to know how true, “Any season that ends in Omaha is a good one,” is. It does make me think about what the basketball equivalent might be.

The way we perceive basketball is a funny thing. The Vols have advanced to the Sweet 16 six times since 2000 (28.5% of the tournaments played in that span), and five times since 2007 (35.7%). You’d like to see that number climb towards 50%, a number elite programs tend to hit. But the Vols have also had the misfortune of going 1-5 in those Sweet 16 games, losing three times as the higher seed. Those finishes, and their inability to reach a round that would automatically be defined as success, can leave a slightly sour aftertaste.

The one time the Vols did break through to the Elite Eight did come a couple years after the football program entered exile in 2010, and is probably my favorite team to write about as long as I’ve been doing this. That season will live forever, both in individual moments and the whole. But they had the misfortune on the calendar of being followed by the investigation into their head coach just five months later, and the termination of said coach at the end of the following season. Cuonzo Martin’s run to the Sweet 16 was followed by his exit within the month. Rick Barnes’ best team and most memorable win are slightly burdened by a 20-point loss to Auburn within 24 hours.

So even in a sport where things have gone overwhelmingly well in the last 15 years, with real and regular opportunities to make history, it feels like even the things we’ve truly celebrated never last quite long enough.

Still, the most valuable thing for Tennessee is the opportunity. The basketball team is going to be in the hunt. The football team used to be, even through 2007. The baseball team could be in the future.

In the midst of those opportunities, there will always be misses. There are plenty from 1989-2007 in football, and trust me, those hurt more too. Seasons with little-to-no-regrets – 1989, 1995, 1997, 1998, 2004 – are outnumbered by seasons with great wins and tough losses. That’s the nature of the beast. There are roller coaster years like 1990 or 2007 that ultimately ended in satisfaction. There are individual wins so great, like the turning-30 Miracle at South Bend, that define entire seasons. And there is disappointment, to be sure, when some of the best moments were followed by some of the hardest; the two Saturdays in December 2001 that defined much of the post-1998 Fulmer conversation turn 20 themselves this fall.

That’s the beauty of sports: it’s all opportunity. You’ll win and you’ll lose. We’ve grown accustomed to there not being enough distance between the one and the other. But the opportunities we want are there in basketball and, hopefully, baseball. And a new coach will get a chance to chase his own starting this fall.

So it looks like we’re going to 12, though there will be some weeping and gnashing of teeth over going higher than eight. (And some additional tears for quarterfinal rounds keeping bowls on life support instead of more games on campus.)

Tennessee, of course, is a long, long way from any playoff conversation. But perhaps one way to learn how you’d actually feel about 12 teams is to run it back through our happier days, to see what difference it might’ve made in our glory days. A big thanks to College Poll Archive for facilitating the fun.

If the field was 12 teams (Top 6 conference champions + Top 6 at-large, rankings using AP, BCS, and CFP polls), how often would the Vols have played for it all?

1989: In, first round game in Knoxville. Three-way-tie for the SEC title with the 11-1 Vols, Alabama, and Auburn, but at #8 in the final regular season AP poll, Tennessee is in either way.

1990: In. SEC Champions at the end of a very strange and wildly enjoyable 8-2-2 campaign.

1991: In. Here’s a good example of how a season might be remembered differently: the ’91 Vols are basically thought of as the Miracle at South Bend team, and that’s about it. But they would’ve squeaked into the playoffs at #10.

1992: Bubble until mid-November. The Johnny Majors-Phillip Fulmer drama would’ve included a fall from what felt like playoff certainty in early October to a hill too steep to climb after three straight losses. Still, another theme emerges for the first time here: even outside the Top 12, if you can win the SEC East, you get a chance to dramatically improve your fate in Atlanta. In 1992, the Vols were alive for Atlanta until mid-November, when Georgia beat Auburn and Florida escaped South Carolina.

1993: In, first round game in Knoxville. The ol’ “Best Vol squad of the 90s in SP+” would’ve not only made the field, but hosted a first round game at #6 in the final regular season AP poll. No season would’ve had its fate more drastically altered; this group would’ve gone to the playoff feeling like a legit national championship contender.

1994: Out

1995: In, first round game in Knoxville. Couldn’t earn a first round bye since the Gators won the SEC, but the #4 Vols are in easily.

1996: In. That Memphis loss stings a little less now eh?

1997: In, first round bye. No worries with Michigan and Nebraska both going undefeated.

1998: In, first round bye. Obviously.

1999: In, first round game in Knoxville. In the, “You made the regular season less meaningful!” camp: Tennessee’s 1999 loss to Arkansas took them out of the national championship picture. In a 12-team playoff, it would’ve cost them basically zero: the Vols were still #5 in the final regular season BCS standings.

2000: Out

2001: In, first round game in Knoxville. Tennessee’s loss to LSU in the SEC Championship Game moves from the most heartbreaking Saturday of our lives to, “Oh man, now we have to play an extra game.”

2002: Out

2003: In, first round game in Knoxville. Here’s another season that looks very different in a 12-team playoff. The Vols finished eighth in the final regular season BCS standings at 10-2, got hosed into the Peach Bowl, then tried to fight Clemson for an hour and lost thanks to 134521087 penalties. But in a 12-team playoff, not only is Casey Clausen’s final team in, they’re hosting.

2004: Bubble until Atlanta. The Vols finished 15th in the BCS after losing to undefeated Auburn in Atlanta, but that’s obviously a win-and-you’re-in scenario.

2005: Out

2006: Bubble until mid-November. Instead of the loss to LSU being the one that cost the Vols, it would’ve been the next one at Arkansas that took Tennessee out.

2007: Bubble until Atlanta. Same as 2004, win in Atlanta and you’re in.

The Vols, of course, would’ve been out from 2008-2015. Even that 2015 squad, who played so many great teams so close, was too far behind to catch up. The 2016 squad would’ve been on the bubble until mid-November, when Florida’s win over LSU knocked the Vols out of Atlanta. Then back to spectating from 2017 to the present day.

So pros: the Vols are in 11 times in 15 years from 1989-2003. They only earn first-round byes in 1997 and 1998 thanks to Steve Spurrier, but do host a first round game six times. And they’re technically in the national championship conversation deep into 2004 and 2007, years that otherwise could only shoot for the division title by then.

And cons: those division titles end up meaning pretty much nothing, though much of that is because of who Tennessee was as a program by that point. Instead of 2004 and 2007 feeling like a disappointment, Tennessee just misses the playoffs in 2004, 2006, and 2007 after making it 11 of 15 times prior. That, of course, is the same hot seat for Phillip Fulmer in 2008; mileage will always vary, but I’m not sure this new scenario will automatically lead to more job security for everyone.

Asking if this scenario increases or diminishes Tennessee’s legacy would be entirely dependent on what those Vols did in those hypothetical playoffs. But I think it’s safe to say it can keep all kinds of teams in the conversation for much longer…and it can diminish all other accomplishments.

The best news for Tennessee coming into what will be a landscape-shifting moment for how we define success in college football: we haven’t had much by any definition in 14 years. So while this kind of shift may not automatically make life any easier for someone like Kirby Smart, any kind of success – stealing an SEC East title, just hanging around the conversation, or being one of those teams that makes someone say, “You know, we used to have better teams here in the Outback Bowl…”…it’s all forward progress from here.