Tennessee football using loss margins as motivation

The Tennessee Volunteers football team went 9-4 (5-3 SEC) last season, but may have been better than that record suggests.

You see, Tennessee’s last five losses were only by a combined 25 points, with an average margin of loss of just five points. Thus, as ESPN’s Dari Nowkhah tweeted, coach Butch Jones and his staff using that stat as motivation for the 2016 season is not at all surprising.

And Tennessee has enough key players returning in 2016 that another step forward can be taken in the hyper-competitive SEC. One-possession losses are not overall indicative of a team’s overall talent, so it’s really just a matter of the Vols finding the right formula and every piece falling into place, regardless of Alabama, LSU or even Texas A&M having superior talent on paper.

Throw in that Tennessee has upped its win total in each of Jones’ three seasons in Knoxville, and another step forward in 2016 seems like all but a certainty.

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*Featured Photo (above) credit to Twitter

Paxton Lynch excited for pro day spotlight
Paxton Lynch excited for pro day spotlight