Outside of the Transfer Portal, “scheduling wars” has dominated the college football offseason.
In the age of dwindling attendance and the budding likelihood of an expanded playoff, powerhouse programs are jumping at the opportunity to schedule future marquee home-and-home series to both attract fans and beef up their SOS. Georgia has been particularly ambitious in trying to slate three Power 5 games a year in the future, but Oklahoma, Texas, Notre Dame, Michigan, Ohio State, Clemson and UCLA, among others, haven’t been shy about scheduling big, too.
Even Florida, which for decades viewed any road game west of the Mississippi River like how the Dothraki originally refused to cross the Narrow Sea, has recently added trips to Colorado and Texas on its future schedule.
So the questions begs, will Tennessee join the aggressive scheduling fray?
First, the Vols haven’t been scared to play big non-conference games in the past. During Phillip Fulmer’s heyday, Tennessee made famed trips to Miami, Notre Dame, UCLA and Cal. In recent years, the Vols had series with Oklahoma and Oregon.
But Tennessee hasn’t played more than a single non-conference Power 5 team in the regular season since 1997. That’s probably not going to cut it if the program truly wants to return to its old status as a championship contender.
This may seem like a cart before the horse deal — the Vols obviously need to start winning some games soon — but most of these marquee matchups are scheduled years in advance.
Tennessee has BYU (2019, 2023), Oklahoma (2020, 2024) and Pitt (2021, 2022) on its future schedules. The Vols also have a home-and-home with Nebraska slated for 2026 and 2027 — 20 years after the original deal for the series was struck.
But take a peak at Tennessee’s future schedules and there’s plenty of opportunities to add another game.
2019 — Georgia State, BYU, Chattanooga and UAB
2020 — Charlotte, at Oklahoma, Troy, Furman
2021 — Bowling Green, Pitt, South Alabama, one open spot
2022 — at Pitt, Ball State, Army, one open spot
2023 — at BYU
2024 — Oklahoma
2026 — at Nebraska
2027 — Nebraska
At the Big Orange Caravan stop in Nashville this time a year ago, Fulmer, now Tennessee’s athletics director, delivered some of his only public thoughts on the program’s future schedule.
“We are working on scheduling right now. In most cases, I think our home games need to be played at home in Knoxville. We have a great place, a great setting and so much of our economy centers around it,” he said.
Despite Tennessee packing Bristol for the biggest college football crowd in history in a win over Virginia Tech in 2016, christening Mercedez-Benz Stadium with a win over Georgia Tech in 2017 and playing its opener in Charlotte last fall, Fulmer made it known he wasn’t interested in continuing the school’s proliferation of neutral-site games. It makes sense, too. Why take away a home game from a fan base who would flock to Neyland for a fun matchup?
“I’m not a big fan of them to be honest with you,” Fulmer said in another media appearance. “We’re not going to take a home game away from Knoxville. It’s too important to the university and the businesses here.”
The Vols have an open spot in 2021 and several available dates in the years after, but in the last 12 months, the only game added to Tennessee’s future schedule was the recent announcement of paying Troy $1.5 million to play in Neyland Stadium in 2020. In the same week, Tennessee revealed a new $280 Vol Pass for football season tickets, allowing fans to attend every home game but not ensuring the same seats each week. It’s hard not to draw a line between the two announcements.
The Vol Pass might be a creative way to try and combat ticket issues — Tennessee averaged roughly 78,000 fans in 2018 — but it’s a band-aid without much adhesive. Folks simply don’t want to pay sticker price to sit in the sun and watch a cupcake get tossed into a meat grinder. Scheduling marquee Power 5 games isn’t the end-all solution either, but it’s a much stronger alternative. The fact it also helps in recruiting and has potential playoff implications is a bonus, too.
Last May, Fulmer said, “Our schedule right now is plenty for most people in the country. It’s tough.”
He’s not wrong, and yet, the right thing to do is for Tennessee to beef up its future schedule, benefitting both the fans and the program.
