One of the many stories of this college football season has been Tennessee’s ability to seemingly escape from hole, against any level of team.
The Volunteers began the season on a Thursday night against Appalachian State of the Sun Belt Conference. The Mountaineers seemed to dominate the game and held a late 13-3 lead. Tennessee managed to rally, come back, and win the game in overtime. The game raised serious questions about Tennessee’s ability in the trenches, questions that it has answered in the games since then.
In the second game of the season, Tennessee started out slow and fell in a two-touchdown hole against Virginia Tech. It was like the Volunteers flipped a switch in the second quarter, and they ran away to an easy win. The Volunteers never trailed in the following week against Ohio, but they were back to their comeback ways after reversing a 21-0 deficit against Florida in Week 4. And, of course, who can forget last week’s epic comeback — when Tennessee answered a long Georgia touchdown pass with under 20 seconds to go with a Hail Mary touchdown of its own?
So when Texas A&M took a 28-7 lead over Tennessee this week, there was no reason for Volunteers to panic. A three-touchdown deficit is not an ideal situation, of course, but this team has been here before. In fact, Tennessee’s ability to escape just about any situation was highlighted over and over late in the game. After Tennessee cut the lead to a touchdown with just over two minutes to go, Texas A&M burst to what should have been a game-sealing touchdown run–but this happened.
The fumble out of the end zone is a touchback that game Tennessee the ball. Just over one minute later, Joshua Dobbs threw an 18-yard touchdown pass to Alvin Kamara to tie the game. Texas A&M wasn’t done yet, though, as a quick deep drive set up a potentially game-winning 38-yard field goal. Tennessee found another life, as the field goal was missed wildly to the left.
Tennessee’s luck, and unbeaten season, finally ended in the second overtime, when Dobbs was intercepted after Texas A&M had scored a touchdown. The Volunteers fall to 5-1, but still controls its own destiny in the SEC East, though they have to face Alabama next week.
Texas A&M Moves to 6-0
The main excitement of this game may have been Tennessee’s comeback and efforts at the end, but we can’t lose sight of the winners of this game either. The win makes Texas A&M the second team this season to become bowl eligible; Clemson became the first on Friday night.
Texas A&M had been a bit tough to judge in the first five weeks of the year. The season opened with a good win over UCLA. The Bruins seems to be a pretty decent team, but the win was far from decisive and it’s hard to make real judgments about teams in Week 1. Similarly, wins over Prairie View A&M, South Carolina, and Auburn tell us a little, but not enough.
Texas A&M has been sliding up in the polls–mainly due to a win over Arkansas two weeks ago, as well as due to the fact that any 5-0 SEC team will get some poll love. There were still questions, though. Was Arkansas overrated based on a win over an overrated TCU team? (Probably.) How good is UCLA, considering it lost to Stanford and barely beat BYU? (Answer, probably pretty good.)
Now those questions have been answered. Tennessee might habitually start slowly, but it is undeniable that the Volunteers are a quality team, especially after those Florida and Georgia wins–not to mention that the Virginia Tech win looks much better this week too. Texas A&M, led by Oklahoma transfer Trevor Knight, will be a consensus Top 6 team come Sunday (cracking into the Top 5 of Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, Michigan, and Washington might be too difficult). The Aggies will be recognized as an elite team, and no one will be able to question if they belong anymore.
What’s next for Texas A&M? After playing for six weeks to start the season, the Aggies get their bye. After that? It’s a trip to Tuscaloosa to take on Alabama.
What’s Going on in the SEC East?
With Tennessee’s loss in this game, we now have to discuss what will happen in the SEC East race. Tennessee and Florida are currently tied at 2-1. The Volunteers control their own destiny, but that would mean defeating Alabama next week. Florida has two difficult conference tests remaining–against Georgia on October 29th and at Arkansas the following week. The Gators had a third tough game, but this week’s cross-divisional rivalry contest against LSU was cancelled. If that game is not played, a 6-1 Florida team would win the SEC East over a 6-2 Tennessee team.
That scenario, of course, is a long way off, and a lot can happen over the course of a football season. Florida will be favored in every remaining conference game, though, with the possible exception of the road trip to Arkansas. Tennessee will be favored in every game aside from that Alabama game. It’s too early in the season to call any scenario “likely,” but this scenario is probably the most likely of all the potential ways the division could play out.
This is a much larger story, but as of now there has been no move to reschedule the LSU/Florida game. The conference would like it to be played, but that would probably mean buying out LSU’s November 19th game against South Alabama–and reimbursing LSU for the lost revenue from a home game. This will be an important SEC East story to keep an eye on the rest of the season, and one that just became much more relevant with Tennessee’s loss this week.
