Tennessee projected to play South Carolina, Vanderbilt and Alabama annually
With the arrival of Oklahoma and Texas into the SEC, one of the biggest debates among Tennessee and SEC fans has been future schedules.
The SEC is going to a 6-3 model with three common opponents that you play every year in football.
Friday, Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger put out a projected rundown of the schedule. Dellenger made it clear this was his educated guess and it was by no means official. A schedule announcement is expected sometime this spring or at the latest at SEC spring meetings in Destin in May.
Most have projected Tennessee to continue to play Kentucky as one of their three annual games. The border war formally known as the battle for the beer barrel has been played 118 times. The last time the two teams didn’t play on the gridiron was in 1943. To make up for it they played twice in 1944. The two teams first met in 1893.
Tennessee has played South Carolina every year since the Gamecocks came into the league in 1992.
There’s no way whoever the permanent rivals are will make everyone happen and Alabama head coach Nick Saban as already expressed his displeasure who Dellenger has projected to play Tennessee, Auburn and LSU annually.
“I’ve always been an advocate for playing more [conference] games,” Saban told SI. “But if you play more games, I think you have to get the three fixed [opponents] right. They’re giving us Tennessee, Auburn and LSU. I don’t know how they come to that [decision].
“They said they did a 10-year whatever,” Saban went on to say. “Well, some of those years, Tennessee wasn’t as good as they’ve been in the previous 10 years, but now they are as good as they used to be before those 10 years.
“We got three teams and two of them are in the top 10 and the other is in the top 10 a lot,” Saban adds. “Look historically over a 25-year history, and the three best teams in the East are Georgia, Tennessee and Florida. You look historically at 25 years, Alabama, LSU and Auburn are the three best teams in the West. So we’re playing them all.”
