Tennessee Football: How the Vols can recover after Georgia State loss

The Tennessee Volunteers football program hit the lowest of the lows on Saturday after losing to Georgia State, but they can recover.

Obviously, you’ll never fully recover from losing to a football program that has been in existence for ten years, but you can come back and win six games this season, although it will be very difficult if that team comes out to play every game.

It’s not going to be easy, and it might not even be possible for Jeremy Pruitt and the Vols to recover, but I think there’s a way to win back the fan base.

First off, you have to beat BYU and Chattanooga. If you lose either of those games, it’s going to become more difficult to win over the program. After that, Florida, Georgia, or Mississippi State are a must-win.

Of course, we would rather it be Florida or Georgia, but if the Vols can win one of those games, then the fan base will slowly start coming back in. Pruitt has to prove he can win the games he’s supposed to and some he’s not supposed to for the fan base to get back on his side.

Alabama is on the schedule after that. If Pruitt somehow upsets Alabama, then I think the fan base is back in. We can overlook the Georgia State loss if you beat Alabama, but I can’t see any situation where that’s the case.

South Carolina, UAB, Kentucky, Missouri, and Vanderbilt are the final five opponents. Tennessee needs to win four of those last five games to attempt to recover and win some of the fan base back.

Winning all five would be huge and get the Vols to eight wins, but after seeing what I saw on Saturday, I don’t know if that’s possible anymore, or any of this.

The game I’m looking at right now out of those last five games is the UAB game. Pruitt can’t overlook UAB, or he will get more embarrassed than he did on Saturday. UAB won Conference USA last year, so they’re a much better football team than the 2-10 Sun Belt team.

But a lot is going to have to change from now until Saturday to get that started. I can see a situation where Tennessee goes 3-9, and I can also see them figuring things out and going 7-5 or maybe even 8-4, but that might just be wishful thinking.

Also, Facebook crowd, if you’re upset people are ranking Tennessee last in the SEC after Week 1, please stop making a fool of yourself. Tennessee lost to Georgia State they’re obviously the worst team in the SEC after Week 1.

I don’t know what it’ll take to win the fan base back over, but it won’t be easy for Pruitt and the Vols. Pruitt needs to give full play-calling duties to his coordinators and step in when necessary instead of limiting the playbook.

And if that’s the play-calling from the coordinators without Pruitt holding them back, then they should’ve been fired immediately after the game.

Not only does Tennessee need to win seven or eight games this year, but they also need to show they have what it takes to win every game at some point.

I think we all know they won’t beat Alabama, but if they can show some heart and they’re willing to compete, then that will go a long way with the fans. If they can dominate in some SEC games that’ll also help get some fans back on board.

If they can’t do that, then the stadium in the second half will, unfortunately, be what it looks like more and more every game this year and could be every home game in 2020.

I hope things change so we can enjoy Tennessee football again, but it seems like it’s only getting worse and worse every year.