Vols heading to the Music City Bowl

For the second time in seven seasons, the Vols are going bowling in Nashville. Tennessee has been selected to play in the Music City Bowl against Nebraksa on December 30th at 3:30pm est.

The game will mark the third consecutive trip to the post-season for Tennessee. Their longest streak in over a decade. The biggest question for the Vols and Tennessee fans will be where is the interest level? Tennessee's failures in Nashville eight days ago against Vanderbilt cost the Vols a trip to the Sugar Bowl.

Like the Vols, Nebraska (9-3, 6-3) probably had higher aspirations than finishing the year in the Music City Bowl after a 7-0 start that propelled them into the top-10. The Huskers closed their season by going 2-3 in their final five games when the schedule really stiffened up.

Those three losses all came on the road at Wisconsin, at Ohio State and at Iowa.

Nebraska boasted one of the more balanced offensive attacks in the Big Ten, averaging 178 yards per game on the ground and 207 yard through the air. On the year Nebraska averaged 26.8 ppg, good for sixth in the Big Ten in that category.

That offense, however, failed to place a single player on either the first or second team Big Ten all-conference teams.

The Cornhuskers were a middle of the pack defensive team in their conference. The 22.8 ppg they gave up placed them sixth in the Big Ten in scoring defense.

The Nebraska defense looked largely average for most of the year in terms of yardage surrendered. They were sixth in the Big Ten in rushing defense, giving up 141 per game and 10th in pass defense at 209 yards per game.

Tennessee's first appearance in the Music City Bowl ended in heartache, a 30-27 double overtime loss to North Carolina in 2010. The Vols had appeared to win the game but a North Carolina penalty on a game tying field goal attempt gave the Tar Heels another chance to kick a field goal to tie the game.

The result of the confusion at the end of the game resulted in the ten second run off rule being put in place the next year. which would prevent that from happening again.

Tennessee is looking for a third straight bowl win, which would be their longest streak since the 1994-1996 seasons.