The Tennessee Vols’ bowl destination appears to have been determined, and it won’t be a long drive for many Tennessee fans.
Per On3 Sports’ Brett McMurphy, the Vols are going to the Music City bowl. Their opponent? The Illinois Fighting Illini.
The game will take place at Nissan Stadium on December 30.
Illinois finished 8-4 this season, ending their 2024 regular
season with a 20-13 win over Northwestern. They were a good bit like Tennessee in one respect – they won most of the games they were supposed to and lost the ones they were underdogs. They had one of the ugliest losses of the season with a 63-10 destruction at the hands of the current No. 1 Indiana Hoosiers. Ohio State also won in Champaign decisively 34-16. The Illini had a particularly ugly and notable loss late in the season, losing 27-10 to a very bad Wisconsin team.
As such, this is a team that, in my mind, is a very beatable one for Tennessee – provided that the Vols don’t have too many players opt out/hit the transfer portal/etc. We’ll see how those things shake out in the coming days.
The Vols return to the site of their 2021 bowl destination, a 48-45 overtime loss to the Purdue Boilermakers. Jaylen Wright’s forward progress was called stopped on fourth down at the goal line despite him scoring, and Purdue kicked a field goal to walk it off.
We’ll see if Tennessee can write a happier ending this time around.
