Tennessee headed to the Orange Bowl to play Clemson
Following their first 10 win regular season since 2003, Tennessee is heading to the Orange Bowl to take on Clemson in their first ever New Year’s six bowl.
Tennessee finished 6th in the college football playoff rankings following USC’s loss to Utah in the Pac-12 championship game.
There was concern about the Rose Bowl invoking a cluster clause in their selection picking Penn State over Ohio State sending the Buckeyes to the Orange Bowl because they are indicated they didn’t want to go to the Rose Bowl a second straight year.
However because of the Trojans loss Friday night Ohio State has landed in the college football playoffs which means the Vols are heading to Miami.
Tennessee leads the nation in scoring averaging 47.3 points a game. The Vols 75 touchdowns leads the country five ahead of Ohio State.
Saturday night, Vol offensive coordinator Alex Golesh accepted the head coaching position at the University of South Florida. It’s unclear at this point if Golesh will remain a part of the program through the bowl game of if he will head on to Tampa as head coach of the Bulls.
It will be the Vols first trip to the Orange Bowl since the Vols loss to Nebraska following the 1997 season in Tom Osborne’s final game for the Cornhuskers and Peyton Manning’s final game.
Clemson received the Orange Bowl invite by virtue of beating North Carolina 39-10 in the ACC championship game. Dabo Swinney’s team is 11-2 on the year with losses to Notre Dame and to South Carolina to close out the regular season. In Saturday night’s ACC championship game, freshman quarterback Cad Klubnik came off the bench replacing DJ Uiagalelei throwing for 279 yards, and a touchdown going 20 for 24.
Head coach Dabo Swinney drew the ire of Tennessee fans with is comments he made following Tennessee’s loss to South Carolina on his weekly radio show.
“Tennessee is not built defensively, they’re built to outscore people,” said Swinney on his radio show last week.
“They’re flipping burgers during the conference championship weekend,” “Like are we going to Atlanta or Phoenix, and next thing you know you forget you gotta go play.”
Swinney clarified his stance a week later.
“That’s just a classic example of people just hear what they want to hear,” said Swinney. “I actually was paying them a compliment. I was really more challenging our guys.
“We were talking about finishing and how hard it is to win,” added Swinney. “I’m talking about our guys, you say, ‘OK. You’ve got a path that’s clear. But you have to finish.’ I just made the point the team we’re getting ready to play, this team, they’ve just got to do this and do that, then next week, they just can sit at home and flip burgers and watch all the championship games they’re in. But you’ve got to finish.”
Clemson last appeared in the Orange Bowl in 2015 when they beat Oklahoma 37-17.
