Tennessee’s 2024 schedule has another void to fill.

The SEC announced Wednesday that it directed league schools Georgia and Tennessee to postpone scheduled home-and-home games with Oklahoma due to the fact that the Sooners, along with Texas, are joining the league in 2025.

Tennessee was set to face Oklahoma at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman in the second game of the 2020 season, but that matchup was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic as the SEC opted for a conference-only schedule that year. The second meeting was scheduled at Neyland Stadium in 2024.

With Oklahoma and Texas set to exit the Big 12 and appear on Tennessee’s future schedules as conference foes in the near future, the Vols are tasked with finding a premier non-conference game in two years.

Currently, Tennessee is slated to open the 2023 season against Virginia at Nissan Stadium in Nashville and Syracuse at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta in 2025. The Vols also have home-and-home games against Nebraska (2026 and 2027) and Washington (2029 and 2030) – and another neutral site contest against West Virginia at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte (2028) – already scheduled.

With the current trajectory that the Vols’ football program is heading under second-year head coach Josh Heupel, the opportunity now presents itself for Tennessee to be featured in an early-season primetime showdown on its home turf sooner rather than later.

Here are four options Tennessee Director of Athletics Danny White might consider:

The Vols and Fighting Irish have played eight times beginning in 1978 and the series is dead even at 4-4 all-time.

It has produced some classics, too – including Tennessee’s comeback victory in the game dubbed as the “Miracle at South Bend,” at Notre Dame Stadium in 1991. Tennessee won three-straight between 1991 and 2001, but Notre Dame claimed the last two games in 2004 and 2005.

Two traditional powers linking up at Neyland Stadium would be sure to draw a lot of national attention.

For two teams on opposite ends of the country, Tennessee and UCLA have made for plenty of memorable games.

The Vols hold a slight 7-6-2 edge over the Bruins in a series that began in Memphis in 1965. The 1974 game saw Tennessee quarterback Condredge Holloway return from injury and engineer a game-tying drive late, and the 2008 game on Labor Day night was an overtime thriller – won by UCLA, 27-24, at the Rose Bowl.

After a rough start to his tenure, UCLA seems to be playing better under head coach Chip Kelly the last two seasons. If that continues, a 2024 game could be one to keep an eye on.

Tennessee and Clemson have played 19 times, but only once since 1976.

The last meeting between the Vols and Tigers took place in the 2003 Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl in Atlanta. Distance wise, having the two programs meet up in a regular season game makes sense.

Clemson has won two of the last seven national championships and been a perennial top-10 team for much of head coach Dabo Swinney’s tenure. That’s a standard Tennessee has been trying to get back to for the better part of a decade. Beating a team like Clemson at home is a good way to get there.

Two of the premier college football programs of the 1990s have only played twice, most memorably in the 1999 BCS National Championship Game at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona.

The Vols won their fifth national championship that night, beating the Seminoles 23-16. Their one regular-season meeting took place in Knoxville in 1958.

Like Tennessee, Florida State is attempting to claw its way back into the graces of college football’s elite. What better way for either team to prove they’re on their way back than playing each other?

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