In recent years, Tennessee has become accustomed to playing early games away from Neyland Stadium without having to play in front of hostile crowds.

There was last year’s season-opener against Georgia Tech in Mercedez-Benz Stadium, the Week 2 Battle of Bristol the year before and a meeting with Bowling Green in Nashville to open the 2015 campaign. The Volunteers will open the 2018 season in Charlotte against West Virginia, but future neutral-site games have yet to be scheduled.

Patrick Brown of GoVols247 has an interesting article on the scheduling situation as both UT’s new coach, Jeremy Pruitt, and athletic director, Phillip Fulmer recently weighed in on the matter.

Pruitt, who has coached in numerous neutral-site regular-season contests as an assistant at Georgia and Alabama, seems open to the idea, especially when the Vols can benefit.

“The home-and-home is definitely great, but also if there’s a place that you’re going to recruit, it’s good to play a game there,” Pruitt told Brown. “And I think when you’re going to play a neutral-site game, you’ve got to have that thought in mind.”

Pruitt’s boss, however, seems more focuses on brining more big games to Knoxville. Those would presumably be Power 5 home-and-home series similar to the recent clashes with Oklahoma.

“It’s a great stadium, and we are working on scheduling,” Fulmer said when asked about playing in Nashville. “In most cases, I think our home games need to be played at home in Knoxville. We have a great place, great setting. So much of our economy centers around it, but I don’t think you ever say never.”

A deeper look into Tennessee’s future schedules can be found in Brown’s full article here.