Tennessee Football: Will the Volunteers Win Every Remaining Game?

Tennessee needs to run the table the rest of the way to have a successful football season, even though that table isn't exactly spread with cupcakes and cream puffs.

Still, by SEC standards, coach Butch Jones' Vols have a pretty easy slate to close the season.

After an early gauntlet that included games against an upstart Bowling Green as well as Florida, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Georgia and Alabama, things lighten up considerably.

UT finishes against Kentucky, South Carolina, North Texas, Missouri and Vanderbilt. That group has a combined 14-22 record, and the Wildcats, Gamecocks, Tigers and Commodores are just 7-14 in the SEC.

Though Mizzou may be a better team than it's shown with the return of junior quarterback Maty Mauk from suspension, the toughest of the Vols' remaining games may just be this weekend in Lexington against Mark Stoops' rebuilding 'Cats.

It's a game that opened with UT as a 7.5-point favorite, according to Odds Shark, and it has swollen to 8.5 or 9 in some places. 

In other words, the Vols should win out, and they aren't going to look back too painfully at the massive "what-might-have-beens" if they do.

Those include four narrow losses by 17 total points, three blown double-digit leads and a setback to Alabama after holding a lead with less than three minutes remaining.

They proved that against an Alabama team that may wind up being the best in the league. Tennessee hung tight the whole way, even going ahead of the Tide with 5:56 left. It did so banged up and without the benefit of any trick plays or real luck.

Tennessee went head-to-head with the tough, but tired, Tide and lost an ulcer-inducer. It really stung to get beat, but it can't hurt for long.

"There is still a lot to look forward to," senior safety Brian Randolph said, according to Volquest.com's Brent Hubbs. "We have five games left, and we're not going to let Alabama beat us twice."

Indeed, there's plenty left for the Vols. Though it can't be the exceptional season it could have been, it can still be a positive step forward.

Winning all five games on the schedule would mean an 8-4 record, a strong mid-tier bowl eager to accommodate well-traveling UT fans thrilled to be back in the national picture as well as the chance for the first nine-win season since 2007.

Lose just one, and 2015 is a disappointment. Anything other than 5-0 to close the season is unacceptable.

Maybe it isn't fair, but given the way Tennessee lost, the disappointment of botching a golden opportunity to end the streak against the Gators and a frustrating defeat that won't age well to a mediocre Arkansas team, UT can't afford a hiccup to an inferior opponent.

And the Vols are frankly deeper, more talented and more explosive than any team left on their schedule.

As Hubbs said: "The Vols aren't David playing a bunch of Goliaths the rest of the way. The Vols aren't the underdogs and the mentality is not that they should only hope to be able to make it a four-quarter game. The storyline is no longer, 'Are the Vols ready to get over the hump with the big boys?'"

Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports

It all starts this Saturday night with a Halloween date against Kentucky. Coming off a knife-twisting loss to Bama, the game against the Wildcats comes at a tenuous time. So, it's certainly a road trip UT can't overlook.

But given how a worse Tennessee team hung 50 on the Wildcats in Neyland Stadium a season ago with Joshua Dobbs at the helm and how atrocious UK looked last week trying to defend dual-threat quarterback Dak Prescott in a lopsided loss to Mississippi State, the Vols should handle business.

Dobbs is a less advanced clone of Prescott, and Tennessee has more offensive weapons and a better offensive line surrounding him than the Bulldogs. But Prescott was a one-man wrecking crew in a Heisman Trophy-worthy performance where he finished with 465 total yards and six touchdowns.

Stoops told A Sea of Blue's Warren Taylor that a week preparing to face Prescott could help against Dobbs: "I think it does. I think it does to some extent. Certainly it put a lot of pressure on us all week. We need to do a lot better job."

After that, Tennessee returns home to face a South Carolina team that's been discombobulated offensively, a mess at times on defense and is now trying to regroup under interim coach Shawn Elliott after Steve Spurrier abruptly resigned.

The Vols beat Carolina the past two years when they weren't expected to, and this season should be no different.

After the game against the Gamecocks, UT plays North Texas, which may be the worst team in all of FBS. The Mean Green lost all seven of their games by an average score of 47-16. Portland State beat them 66-7, if you can believe that.

They're atrocious.

After that contest, Tennessee has to travel to Columbia, Missouri, to face a Tigers team that is nasty defensively but historically awful on offense. The Tigers are converting just 22.4 percent of third-down conversions and were 0-of-14 in a 10-3 loss against Vanderbilt.

The season ends against the Commodores, who are surprisingly playing pretty well in the second year under coach Derek Mason. Though they're just 3-4, they've been in every game, and they always play Tennessee tough.

Still, there's simply no excuse for UT losing either of those last two games, or any game remaining, for that matter.

The margin for error is minuscule the rest of the way. While the frustrating losses at the beginning of the year can be forgiven, the only way for that to happen is an eight-win campaign. It's an obvious step forward to do that, beat one of the big three rivals (Georgia) and play every game ultra-competitively.

Even the staunchest critics would admit that's a strong step forward, even if it isn't quite the one a hype-filled offseason promised.

The recruiting wins Jones enjoyed the past two years should really begin to cash in now that the schedule is loosening up some. A season-long shaky defense now has the catalyst game to build off of after a solid performance against the Crimson Tide, and Dobbs is the X-factor the rest of the way.

There won't be a player with more star potential on the field other than UT's junior signal-caller the rest of the way. He has the ability to take over every single game Tennessee will play this year, and he must do so. 

Dobbs played much better against Georgia and Alabama than he had all season, and it's no surprise the Vols were better because of it.

Last year, around this time, is when Jones' program began turning the fields and planting the seeds of a turnaround. This season, the Vols may have squandered several opportunities to surge to the top of the SEC, but they can cement themselves near the top of the second tier by winning out.

Tennessee has plenty left to play for, and churning out a 5-0 finish may be the start of something special.

All stats gathered from UTSports.com unless otherwise noted. All quotes gathered firsthand unless otherwise noted.

Brad Shepard covers SEC football and is the Tennessee lead writer for Bleacher Report. Follow Brad on Twitter @Brad_Shepard.