The Tennessee Volunteers are Music City Bowl bound to take on the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Both teams got off to great starts. Tennessee started 5-0 and Nebraska started 7-0. Both teams were in the top 10 at some point in the season. Unfortunately towards the end of their seasons, things started going south.
After a 7-0 start, Nebraska faced a gauntlet of road games at Wisconsin, Ohio State and to end their year, at Iowa. They lost in Overtime at Wisconsin, but fell miserably 62-3 at Ohio State and 40-10 at Iowa. The loss at Iowa eliminated them from winning the Big Ten West.
For Tennessee, it was an exciting 5-0 start. Beating Florida for the first time in 11 years. They beat Georgia on a Hail Mary. Everything seemed to be going their way. Then injuries upon injuries happened. The defense especially struggled down the stretch. They would lose at heart breaker at Texas A&M in double overtime and get beat down bad by Alabama 49-10. South Carolina would then upset the Vols. Then Tennessee would be upset again at Vanderbilt to end the year. Tennessee was heavy favorites to win the SEC East and that didn’t pan out.
Aside from the games at Ohio State and Iowa, Nebraska’s defense was much improved this year. They’re only allowing 22.8 points per game. It will be an interesting matchup to watch the ‘Huskers defense against Joshua Dobbs and the Vols offense. It will also be interesting to see how the banged up defense for Tennessee will handle Nebraska’s offense. Tennessee’s run defense is allowing 234 rushing yards per game, that’s 115 nationally. That’ll be a challenge against the Tommy Armstrong and the ‘Huskers offense.
These are two proud, historic programs that haven’t been what they would like to be for a while. However, both teams took steps in the right directions this year. A win for either team to end the season on a high note would be good momentum heading into the off-season. Nebraska and Tennessee have met only twice before. A 42-17 blowout win for Nebraska in the 1997 Orange Bowl. That awarded the ‘Huskers a national championship that year. Then they met in the 1999 Fiesta Bowl;a more respectable 31-21 Nebraska win.
Things have been very rocky this year on rocky top, but a win over a proud program like Nebraska could make it a little bit better.
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