Tennessee Bowl projections after Week 14: Exploring Volunteers' postseason eligibility

The No. 8 Tennessee Volunteers defeated the Vanderbilt Commodores 36-23 in the final game of their regular season. The win should guarantee that the Volunteers (10-2) make the playoffs. However, it is not clear which bowl game they will play.

Since the Volunteers will not play in the SEC Championship Game, they are not eligible to earn a bye in the first round of the playoffs. However, since they have a high ranking that could increase after some highly ranked teams like Miami lost on Saturday, they should earn a playoff berth.

Tennessee bowl projections after Week 14: Exploring the Volunteers' postseason chances

Since Tennessee did not qualify to play in the SEC Championship Game, it does not have a guaranteed playoff spot. No team is guaranteed a spot unless it is one of the five highest-ranked conference champions. Those five teams earn automatic playoff berths, with the four highest-ranked earning first-round byes.

The next seven spots go to the seven highest-ranked non-conference champions. Tennessee is highly likely to be in that group, but it is not guaranteed. ESPN gives the Volunteers a 97.9% chance of making the playoffs.

247 Sports projects that Tennessee will make the playoffs as the No. 9 seed and play the Ohio State Buckeyes in the first round. They project that the Volunteers will win that game and earn a spot in a playoff bowl game. Based on their projections, Tennessee would play the No. 1-ranked Oregon Ducks in the Rose Bowl in round two of the playoffs.

However, if the Volunteers make the playoffs but lose in the first round, they could still play in a bowl game.

If that is the case, there are several bowl games with SEC tie-ins. Those games include the Gasparilla Bowl, Birmingham Bowl, Liberty Bowl, Music City Bowl, ReliaQuest Bowl, Citrus Bowl, Texas Bowl, Gator Bowl and Duke's Mayo Bowl. It is theoretically possible for the Volunteers to be selected for any of those games.

However, bowl game announcements will not start until after the championship games next weekend. Once those games finish, the committee will announce the playoff teams and bowl games will then be determined.

About the author

Alexander O'Reilly is a journalist at Sportskeeda from Kingston, Ontario with over seven years in the field at companies including SenShot, RVBlogger, Monarch Media, WordAgents, GSeC LLC, and IGC.

His favorite college team is Duke, and his favorite sporting memory was Duke winning March Madness in 2010. JJ Redick was Alex's favorite college player when he was young but more recently, Caleb Williams gets the nod. As the Chicago Bears are Alex's favorite NFL team, this was a perfect match.

Alex's proudest moment came when he was interviewed by a radio station in Ottawa on his opinion on recent moves by the Ottawa Senators, which gave him a confidence boost and the knowledge that he could succeed as a writer.

Aside from sports, Alex likes to spend his time playing games. He is also very passionate about running and strives to improve at the half and full marathon distances.

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Edited by Krutik Jain