Latest bowl projections have Tennessee Vols heading to an unfamiliar destination
The latest bowl game projections from ESPN have the Tennessee Vols heading to an unfamiliar destination later this winter. ESPN's Kyle Bonagura and Mark Schlabach revealed their latest bowl projections on Monday and they each have a different opinion on where Tennessee will spend bowl season. Bonagura has the Vols playing in the TaxAct Texas Bowl […]
The latest bowl game projections from ESPN have the Tennessee Vols heading to an unfamiliar destination later this winter.
ESPN's Kyle Bonagura and Mark Schlabach revealed their latest bowl projections on Monday and they each have a different opinion on where Tennessee will spend bowl season.
Bonagura has the Vols playing in the TaxAct Texas Bowl against Iowa State on December 28.
Schlabach, on the other hand, has Tennessee playing against UCLA in the SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl on December 18.
The Vols have never played in either of these bowl games before.
But there's a very strong chance that the Las Vegas Bowl will be a reality for Tennessee in 2022.
This year is the first time that an SEC team will be featured in the Las Vegas Bowl (that was supposed to happen in 2020, but it was canceled due to COVID-19).
The teams that typically get selected for the Las Vegas Bowl are seven-win or eight-win teams. A lot of folks expect Tennessee to finish with somewhere between 7 to 10 wins, so this would be a logical, yet new, bowl game destination for the Vols.
The Texas Bowl would be a little more of a letdown for UT. The SEC teams that typically reach the Texas Bowl are six-win or seven-win teams. Tennessee is obviously hoping to improve on their seven-win season from last year. And if they do, there's no way the Texas Bowl will be the team that gets the Volunteers. Even a six-win or seven-win Vols team is probably not going to the Texas Bowl simply because it doesn't make a lot of sense for Tennessee or for the Texas Bowl.
Regardless of where the Vols head for a bowl game this winter, it has to be nice for Tennessee fans to know that UT being bowl eligible is pretty much back to being automatic.
It's been a while since that's been the case.
Featured image via Calvin Mattheis/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK
