Tennessee Football: Nebraska will rise back to dominance before Tennessee

The Nebraska Cornhuskers will rise back to dominance before the Tennessee Volunteers, at least according to the Los Angeles Times.

Two dominant football programs with national fanbases, Nebraska and Tennessee, have both seen some dark years in their program’s history recently but both believe they are on the rise back to a dominant football powerhouse.

Nebraska fans have felt what Vols fans are feeling. They’re both in the process of a long rebuild and can only think back to the glory days of the 90s and early 2000s for good memories.

Over the last ten years, the Cornhuskers have amassed a total record of 80-51, and the Vols have a total record of 62-63. Tennessee’s coaching turnover can contribute to that starting with Lane Kiffin coming and going in 2009.

The Vols were unable to sustain success until 2015. In a six-year span, there were four different coaches on the Tennessee sidelines. Nebraska at least had some coaching success which helped get them to some nine and ten win seasons.

With that being said neither team has reached the pinnacle of a National Championship game since the late 90s. Both teams dominated the early 2000s but since then haven’t been able to sustain long term success with the occasional spurt here and there.

The Los Angeles Times believes that with all of that information that the Nebraska Cornhuskers will be more successful before the Tennessee Volunteers and that’s just not true.

At the head coaching position, I do believe the Cornhuskers hold a slight advantage over the Vols. Depending on your personal view both coaches have won National Championships as coaches, one as a head coach and the other as a defensive coordinator.

Other than that, I feel like the Vols are just as good if not better at everything else. Scott Frost went 4-8 in his first year, and Jeremy Pruitt went 5-7. Once again, close but the Vols edge out Nebraska.

Do I think Nebraska will finish with a better record than Tennessee? Yes, and the only reason I say that is because of their Big Ten schedule.

Unless you include Colorado or Illinois a good team, then Nebraska doesn’t face a team above average until Week 5 where they face Ohio State at home. After that, they have Northwestern, Minnesota, Indiana, Purdue, Wisconsin, Maryland, and Iowa.

If Frost is who people say he is, then they should easily win nine or ten games. 8-4 should be the team’s floor where, for many, that’s Tennessee’s ceiling.

I think the easier schedule will help get Nebraska “back,” but it will also hurt them. We’ve seen this easy Big Ten schedule help them get to a good bowl game but lose it to fairly decent teams, including Tennessee in the Music City Bowl.

The LA Times jumped to a crazy conclusion here, but what more should we expect? They looked at both programs from the edge and thought Frost had things more under control than Pruitt. The core is where you get your answers, and they didn’t care to look that far.

I’m not saying I know both programs down to the core, but I probably know them better than the guy who wrote that article from the LA Times.

Yes, both teams will be good, and if their current coach is their guy, then they’ll be in a New Years Six Bowl before their first contract expires. I think both coaches can do that and maybe we will be lucky enough to see them play each other when they reach that point.

Year 2 is supposed to be the year where a fanbase finds out if their coach is forreal. In his second year, a coach is supposed to take the next step so if either Frost or Pruitt take that next step in 2019 we will know more about both of them.

But it’s not easy to get to where they both want to go, and naturally, Tennessee’s path has been the one least traveled and will stay that way as long as they’re in the SEC and playing Florida, Georgia, and Alabama every year.

While right now that seems like a huge negative for Tennessee, it’s actually a big positive. Tennessee knows they will be tested every year by some of the best teams in college football so they know if they can compete with them they’re almost there.

When the time comes for Tennessee to beat the Florida’s, Georgia’s, and Alabama’s they will know they are where they need to be. At the top. And no one will disagree while Nebraska is out there playing Indiana and Maryland.

That’s why I think Tennessee will get back to the pinnacle of college football before Nebraska does. They have everything a National Champion has and needs while Nebraska simply doesn’t.