The Vols Aren’t Even A Top 10 SEC Team Heading Into 2025, Per 247Sports

Image: USA Today

By Cody McClure

The folks over at 247Sports have updated their preseason Top 25 college football rankings.

With the transfer portal now closed up for the spring, rosters are beginning to take shape and give us a pretty close idea to how they’ll look in the fall.

With that, 247 has decided to give us an updated ranking of teams.

A noticeable omission: Tennessee.

That’s right. Year 5 under Josh Heupel and we could be looking at not being ranked in the preseason polls.

On one hand, that’s unacceptable. On the other, it may be a “mulligan” year for Heupel considering Tennessee lost its starting quarterback at the end of spring practice.

Nonetheless, 247 was not shy about ranking several SEC teams ahead of the Vols.

Texas (No. 1), Georgia (No. 6), Alabama (No. 8), LSU (No. 9), Florida (No. 10), South Carolina (No. 17), Ole Miss (No. 18), Auburn (No. 21), Texas A&M (No. 23), and Oklahoma (No. 25) all come in ahead of UT.

By my count, that’s TEN conference foes ahead of Tennessee in these rankings.

TEN. Meaning we are the ELEVENTH best team in the SEC. Gross.

Now, it’s just one publication. But the general consensus around Tennessee doesn’t seem to be great heading into the fall.

It seems to be somewhat plausible that the Vols will not be picked in the top half of the conference at SEC Media Days.

From the College Football Playoff to 7-5? 6-6? Worse?

If you’re looking to buy low, now would be the time to do it when it comes to Vol Football.