TAMPA, Fla. - Tennessee can't change the tenor of the what-ifs of its 2015 football season.
The Volunteers can, however, set the tone for a pivotal offseason for a program creeping back toward national relevancy.
Today's Outback Bowl clash with No. 12 Northwestern (10-2) provides Tennessee (8-4) the opportunity to put a winning touch on one season while sending the Vols into the next on a positive note.
"It's just important to finish strong," linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin said after one of Tennessee's practices this week. "We haven't had nine wins in a long time around here. We feel like it's something we owe to the program. We're going to come out and we're going to give our best performance."
Kickoff at Raymond James Stadium is at noon, and the game will be shown on ESPN2.
Tennessee last finished a season ranked in 2007, but a win today against a team that knocked off Stanford, won at Duke and beat four other bowl teams almost would guarantee the Vols wind up in the Top 25.
That's a significant achievement considering where Tennessee was as a program not that long ago.
"It does (matter)," cornerback Cameron Sutton said. "It builds momentum into the next year. It's good for the program, good for us. It'd send the seniors off on a good note as well, and it's good for the future to come. Recruits see that, players coming in see that, and it kind of builds the expectation, or a level of where we say we have to continue this and keep it going."
Of course, success today doesn't guarantee the same next season.
For proof that the impact bowl games have on the following season is overrated, just look at Iowa. The Hawkeyes were disinterested in last year's TaxSlayer Bowl and were walloped 45-28 by the Vols. Veteran coach Kirk Ferentz was asked questions about his job status following the drubbing.
Eleven months later, Iowa was a play or two away from winning the Big Ten championship game and going into the College Football Playoff unbeaten.
Winning or losing today won't change the outlook for Tennessee or the questions facing the Vols going into 2016.
Given the coaching changes and quarterback deficiency in the SEC East, Tennessee will likely be a heavy favorite to win the division in 2016, and that probably won't change even in a worst-case scenario in which Reeves-Maybin, Sutton and running back Alvin Kamara all decide to jump into the NFL draft.
After this season's near-misses against Oklahoma, Florida, Arkansas and Alabama, the question for Tennessee all offseason will concern its ability to play and coach well enough to win the biggest games on the schedule.
"When you lose four games by 17 points, that shows you right there," quarterback Josh Dobbs said after a practice in Knoxville earlier this month. "We were winning all four games (and three) in the fourth quarter. If you just look at that stat, that shows how close we are. We're literally one play away in all four of those games from being there.
"We know that, and we're just trying to improve each day."
When Dobbs and Reeves-Maybin signed with Tennessee in 2013, the Vols were less than three months removed from a 23-point loss to Vanderbilt in a game that wasn't that close.
Now the Vols are seeking a nine-win season, another checkpoint on the program's upward trajectory.
"Just looking at where we started at and where we are now, it's been a tremendous jump, but I still don't think we're done," Reeves-Maybin said in December. "We still didn't have the type of season we should've had this year, so there's still a lot of room to grow. We've still got to climb the mountain. We're not close to the top at all yet."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.