Bowl Projections: Where Tennessee could be headed after the South Carolina loss
Josh Heupel said during his weekly press conference on Monday on that his Tennessee football team still has a lot to play for despite the season-altering 63-38 loss at South Carolina on Saturday night.
Then he said why.
“Opportunity to finish with 10 regular-season wins,” Heupel said. “Hasn’t been done here in a long time. Put us in the best bowl situation we can be in. This football team has come a long way. It’s grown, it’s competed. It’s all about this week.”
This week is Tennessee (9-2, 5-2 SEC) trying to bounce back against Vanderbilt (5-6, 2-5) on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET; TV: SEC Network) at FirstBank Stadium in Nashville.
The Vols haven’t won 10 games in the regular season since 2003. And they need that 10th win to help land a spot in a New Years Six bowl game, even if their College Football Playoff hopes vanished at the hands of South Carolina at Williams-Brice Stadium.
This season’s New Years Six bowl games outside of the College Football Playoff semifinal games — the Fiesta Bowl and the Peach Bowl will host the top four teams in the final CFP standings — are the Rose Bowl, the Cotton Bowl, the Orange Bowl and the Sugar Bowl.
The Orange Bowl and the Cotton Bowl are the most popular picks for Tennessee based on the updated bowl projections this week:
Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic
CBS Sports: Tennessee vs. Cincinnati
Athlon: Tennessee vs. Cincinnati
ESPN’s Mark Schlabach: Tennessee vs. Tulane
Action Network: Tennessee vs. Tulane
Capital One Orange Bowl
Kyle Bonagura: Tennessee vs. Clemson
Saturday Down South: Tennessee vs. Clemson
College Football News: Tennessee vs. North Carolina
Cheez-It Citrus Bowl
USA Today: Tennessee vs. Penn State
The Orange Bowl will be played on Friday, December 30 at 8 p.m. Eastern Time and will be televised by ESPN, live from Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Fla.
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The Cotton Bowl will be played on Monday, January 2, with kickoff at 1 p.m. ET at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The Citrus Bowl will also be played on January 2 and is another 1 p.m. ET time start at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Fla.
The Cotton Bowl will be televised by ESPN while the Citrus Bowl will be on ABC.
The new College Football Playoff Top 25 will be released Tuesday night. Last week the Vols were ranked behind Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan and TCU, respectively, with the top four teams all winning on Saturday.
Behind Tennessee was No. 6 LSU, which beat UAB 41-10 Saturday night, and No. 7 Southern Cal, which beat UCLA 48-45. No. 8 Alabama beat Austin Peay 41-0 and No. 9 Clemson beat Miami 40-10. No. 10 Utah lost 20-17 at Oregon.
After the top four teams have been picked for the playoff, the remaining New Year Six Bowls pick from conference champions from the Power 5, a Group of 5 team — the highest-ranked conference champion from the American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West and Sun Belt — and the highest-ranked remaining Power 5 teams with respect to bowl tie-ins.
The Sugar Bowl gets the highest-ranked teams from the SEC and Big 12 outside of the top four. The Orange Bowl gets the ACC vs. the Big Ten, SEC or Notre Dame and The Rose Bowl matches up the Pac-12 and Big Ten. The Cotton Bowl could host the Group of 5 team.
