Texas Football: 5 most intriguing possible 2019 bowl game opponents

3. Tennessee Volunteers

Bowl game: Liberty Bowl

An appearance in the Liberty Bowl by no means is an exciting finish in and of itself for the Texas football program. But pitting the Tennessee Volunteers and former Alabama Crimson Tide defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt up against Herman would promise for a lot of national media coverage and interesting headlines.

Pruitt and Herman are completely opposite head coaches with very different roots. Herman came from the Houston Cougars football program after his coaching career launched as offensive coordinator of the Ohio State Buckeyes. Meanwhile, Pruitt landed the Tennessee job back in the 2018 offseason when the coaching search became such a mess.

However, Tennessee and Texas are two of the nation’s true blue blood football programs. These two storied programs haven’t played each other since 1969, when former Texas head coach Darrell Royal beat the Vols in Dallas by the final score of 36-13.

Tennessee is surprisingly hot of late, coming into Week 14 as one of the SEC East’s best teams. They carry a four-game winning streak that includes triumphs over the Kentucky Wildcats and Mizzou Tigers. They have a record of 6-5 in Week 14.

No one expected the Vols to be where they’re at for this point in time. But one more win, over the in-state SEC rival Vanderbilt Commodores, would put Tennessee in a position to possibly get eight wins overall.