Three crucial games for Tennessee in 2015: Florida

If this truly is the season that Tennessee returns to competing in the SEC East, the Vols will have to start winning big games against fellow SEC members.

Tennessee has broken through against South Carolina, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt so far in the Butch Jones era, but for Tennessee to become a factor in the SEC East, the Vols must start ending losing streaks to other SEC foes.

Tennessee has lost five in a row to Georgia, ten in a row to Florida, eight in a row to Alabama, and even three straight to SEC newcomer Missouri.

Tennessee’s schedule will once again be one of the toughest in the country, and depending on how these three games go, the season could be considered a successful one, or a failure.

The first of Tennessee's three most crucial games of the season comes against a team that they have not beaten in a while: the Florida Gators.

When Tennessee takes the field against Florida in late September, it will have been 11 years and eight days since the last time that the Vols bested the Gators.

Tennessee has had no shortage of opportunities against Florida during that streak, but they came the closest during last season’s 10-9 home loss.

Everyone surrounding the Tennessee program, and many surrounding the Florida program, thought for sure that 2014 would be the year that the streak would come to a halt, but instead, in powered on full steam ahead.

Tennessee played one of their worst games of the season against the Gators last season, which seems to be how UT always performs against Florida, no matter how good of a Gator team it is.

This season, the Gator team will probably not be very good.

A coach in his inaugural season coupled with the fact that Florida is losing 12 starters from last season’s team, does not bode well for coach Jim McElwain.

The talent will still be there for the Gators, but not enough to be able to compete to win the SEC East.

So even though it seems impossible that Tennessee will ever beat Florida again, UT will have a good shot when they travel to Gainesville for their first SEC game of the year.

This game will be very important in deciding if Tennessee will actually be an SEC contender in 2015 because of the fact that it is their first conference game of the season.

Since Florida is almost always Tennessee’s first conference game of the season, Tennessee has not started 1-0 in the SEC since 2004.

Tennessee has only won the SEC East one time since then, in 2007, when they won five of their remaining six conference games after starting 0-1.

If a team loses its first game in conference, they’ll be trying to climb back into the race for a large part of the season.

But a win means asserting themselves into the divisional race.

This year, the Florida game falls in a favorable place in the schedule for UT, something that cannot usually be said.

The Vols open up with Bowling Green and Oklahoma, and then get a bit of a rest when they host Western Carolina the week before the matchup with Florida.

The game against Western Carolina will provide a week where starters that are injured even slightly will get a chance to rest before they are needed for the Florida game.

On the field, Tennessee will have the offensive production that it needs to knock off Florida, which always seems to be what is lacking in games against UF.

Florida’s defense will still be good, but not what it was under former head coach and defensive guru Will Muschamp.

Tennessee will definitely be motivated for this game, but that is usually the case, and the games still always end in losses.

The key to the game will definitely be early the first quarter for both teams.

An explosive start from Tennessee will boost confidence and will have the Vols starting to believe.

But a hot start from Florida will bring back memories of the last ten matchups and how they turned out.

It’s hard to say whether or not Tennessee will end the streak at ten, but they certainly will have a chance.

#florida #tennessee #seceast #sec