Since the AP poll expanded to 25 teams in 1989, Tennessee has been ranked in the preseason poll 24 times. That includes yesterday, when the Vols debuted at #12.
In the continuing adventures of “being back”, if you take the average of those 24 appearances over the past 35 seasons, Tennessee’s average preseason ranking is…12th. Right at home.
Here’s the full distribution:
Vols in the Preseason AP Poll, 1989-2023
1
2
1996
1999
3
2005
4
5
1997
2002
6
7
8
1990
1995
2001
9
2016
10
1993
1998
11
1991
12
2000
2003
2023
13
1994
14
2004
15
2007
16
17
18
2008
19
20
21
1992
22
23
2006
24
25
2015
2017
2020
The Vols now have 18 appearances in the preseason Top 15 in that same span. And only two of those came in the last 15 years: ninth in 2016, and 12th for 2023.
From 1990-2007, Tennessee was ranked in the Top 15 in preseason 16 times in 18 years. It’s the 8-15 range where the program really lived in the 90s, with just five preseason Top 5 appearances in those same years.
The Vols were unranked in last year’s preseason poll, just outside the Top 25. They moved up for the Week 2 game at Pitt, the first of six ranked wins last season, a program high.
As you know, some of the real joy last year – extending into right now – was Tennessee occupying a space it hasn’t in such a long time.
How many weeks have the Vols been ranked 12th or higher?
2023: Preseason (1)
2022: September 18 through final poll (13)
2016: Preseason, September 25 through October 10 (4)
2007: Final Poll (1)
The Vols show up more often once you go back to 2006, which is also the last time Tennessee was ranked in the poll every week (including preseason). But Tennessee hasn’t spent an entire season in the Top 12 (or Top 10) since 1999.
It’s only the preseason poll. But there remains much to be grateful for, and much to be excited about.
How much progress can a program make in a coach’s first two years?
One of the things I’ve enjoyed playing with the most these past few weeks is Bill Connelly’s historical SP+ data. Using a simplified version of his SP+ formula based on points scored/points allowed, Connelly has a rating for every team, ever. Back in June, we used this to examine the greatness of 2022 in comparison to every other Tennessee team.
So how does what Tennessee did – making this much progress in just two years – compare to what we’ve seen from other new coaches?
Patience vs. Progress
I’m wrong a lot; the real disappointment is in being wrong in the least fun ways possible. A dozen years and several lifetimes ago, I wrote on how Tennessee’s ceiling in basketball would never be higher than it was under Bruce Pearl. Turns out, we’re not always good at eyeballing that distance.
It’s true to the floor as well, though with football I’m still not sure there was a healthier way to be in the past few years. Considering the unique vulnerability the program faced in the transition from Butch Jones to Jeremy Pruitt, then the month we spent at the end of 2020 into 2021 not knowing if Pruitt would be retained? All of that, on top of 13 years of varying levels of frustration, made it seem like the healthiest path was patience, with a heaping dose of honesty and self-awareness.
And I still think that was right, given the circumstances. The missing piece of that awareness was how quickly things could, in fact, change.
It did not change by hiring the “sure thing” or seeking primarily to win the press conference. And there’s also an overall awareness college football is still trying to wrap itself around. The one where TCU goes 5-7 with losses to Oklahoma State and Iowa State by a combined 80 points, then plays for the national championship the very next year with a new coach.
There’s little that is fully understood about NIL and the transfer portal. It certainly seems to have created the possibility of an accelerated rebuild at a number of different places.
But all of that to say this: in historical SP+, Tennessee made more progress in the first two years under Josh Heupel than any other team in the SEC since divisional play began.
Most Improved Programs in Historical SP+ in a Coach’s First Two Seasons (SEC, 1992-2022)
Tennessee, Josh Heupel (+30.1 in SP+ from 2020 to 2022)
Vanderbilt, James Franklin (+27.5)
Arkansas, Sam Pittman (+27.1)
Ole Miss, Houston Nutt (+25.5)
Florida, Dan Mullen (+24.8)
(full Top 25 at the bottom of this post)
Consider the company this keeps.
Florida under Mullen is a tiny version of the names we’ll find much further down the list. Nick Saban and Kirby Smart are obviously two of the best in the business. But they also stepped in at powerhouse programs with relative recent success. Alabama went 10-2 two years before Saban was hired. Georgia was 10-3 in Mark Richt’s final season. That kind of improvement led to multiple national championships on both counts…but because the starting point was higher, the program’s overall progress doesn’t rate as high on this particular list. Same rules apply for Steve Spurrier at South Carolina in following Lou Holtz; some version of this is what we would’ve been hoping for had Lane Kiffin stayed around for a second season, etc.
Mullen inherited a program that won the SEC East in 2015 and 2016, but hit a steep drop-off in 2017. The Gators went 4-7, losing to Georgia by 35 and Missouri by 29 on consecutive Saturdays. Jim McElwain was out, Dan Mullen was in, and Florida went 10-3 then 11-2 the next two seasons.
And of course, Mullen at Florida is a great example that nothing remains guaranteed; the Gators won the SEC East in 2020 and were the only team to play Alabama within two possessions. But in 2021 Mullen was out as Florida’s season spiraled.
Ole Miss under Houston Nutt is a good example of following a prolonged down period. Nutt followed Ed Oregron, who went 10-25 in three years in Oxford. He immediately turned things around with a pair of 9-4 seasons, but was fired two years later after going 4-8 then 2-10 (those wins were later vacated). In historical SP+, Orgeron’s first team and Nutt’s last team have the lowest ratings at Ole Miss in the modern era. I am far from the expert on Ole Miss (and stay tuned for a Hugh Freeze sighting), but the numbers obviously suggest a lack of sustainable growth for the program during those tenures.
That’s a good word for the current hope at Arkansas, where Sam Pittman took over following one of the lowest-rated seasons for any SEC program in the modern era. The 2019 Hogs went 2-10 and lost five games in a row by at least 27 points, one of them to Western Kentucky. Pittman started in the covid year, and while Arkansas went just 3-7, they lost to Auburn, LSU, and Missouri by a combined seven points.
At some point early in the 2021 season, I remember thinking how we’d be doing backflips for what Pittman accomplished at Arkansas in year two: a beatdown of Texas, then a 10-point win over #7 Texas A&M, and suddenly you’re ranked eighth. The Hogs finished 9-4 and won the Outback Bowl.
Is it sustainable growth? Last year Arkansas went 7-6 with four one-possession losses. When we play this exercise out over a coach’s first three years, you’ll see Pittman continues to be right at the top.
And we know better than most other programs about James Franklin at Vanderbilt. The Commodores are an apples-to-oranges comparison not just to Tennessee, but really any other program in this league; what Franklin was able to accomplish really only grows in stature when you look at both the coach and the program since then. What he did in Nashville is the off-the-top-of-your-head answer to which program made the most progress under a new coach.
And in historical SP+, Josh Heupel’s first two years at Tennessee top even that.
The 2020 season rates the lowest in the modern era at Tennessee, with the Vols at a -2.0 rating (points worse than the average team on a neutral field). In 2021, Tennessee finished at 15.7. Then last season, we jumped to 28.2. Play-for-play, the 2022 Vols rate as the third-best team in program history in historical SP+; they’re the only UT team with three ranked wins of three-plus possessions. From one of the lowest points, to one of the highest points, with a ton of uncertainty and pending NCAA sanctions and playing Alabama and Georgia every year, etc. etc.
The truth is, Tennessee could’ve gone 5-7 in Heupel’s first year, then 9-4 in year two, and we would’ve called it significant progress. And it would’ve been! We’d be excited right now to find out if Tennessee could take the next big step.
And instead, the Vols leaped into the national championship conversation in year two, and positioned themselves to stay there going forward.
Speaking of going forward:
Most Improved Programs in Historical SP+ in a Coach’s First Three Seasons (SEC, 1992-2022)
Ole Miss, Hugh Freeze (+29.3 in SP+ from 2011 to 2014)
Arkansas, Sam Pittman (+24.3)
Vanderbilt, James Franklin (+23.9)
South Carolina, Lou Holtz (+22.9)
Alabama, Nick Saban (+22.5)
If the Vols ended up level in 2023 compared to 2022, Josh Heupel would top this list as well. Being in position to win 11 games again would be an incredible accomplishment, of course. There remain no guarantees, but Tennessee is positioning itself to be in the championship conversation every season; that’s the real prize of all of this, to be in the hunt every year as the field prepares to expand.
What’s been done here is truly remarkable, and by this metric, beyond any progress in any other coach’s first two seasons in the expansion-era SEC.
So…where to next?
Go Vols.
Here’s the full Top 25 research on the first two years:
Our family moved back to Knoxville a year ago now. I often joke that I need a side gig with the chamber of commerce, because I’m not sure anyone is happier to be here.
In that time, it’s been a delight to watch our church and our children grow. My son is getting ready to go to kindergarten; his sister just turned three. We took him to his first game at Neyland last fall, where Tennessee set the school record for total yardage. It won’t always be like this.
And in that same year, as you know and love, Tennessee returned to the national conversation in football, then finished off maybe their single greatest academic year in all sports. Everything is everything.
If you’ve followed along here or at Rocky Top Talk through the years, you’ve probably heard me talk about becoming a blogger around ten days after I became a pastor. It wasn’t anything I planned, I just moved away from Knoxville for the first time in my life, and more than anything, I missed talking about the Vols with my friends.
That was 17 years ago this month. And maybe it’s appropriate: that initial version of it, just me writing when there was time and interest with a small community of dedicated readers…that’s not too dissimilar from what this site is today.
So first, a word of thanks for all of those who’ve read the site(s) for any or all of these years.
And also a word to say: things are slowing down around here.
You probably knew that to some degree already; Joel and I have often said that “write what you want when you want” is what kept these blogs and their authors healthy all these years. I’ve been so grateful for the community at Gameday on Rocky Top these past six years after initially slowing down in leaving Rocky Top Talk.
And one of my favorite parts about the last year of success has been sharing some of those conversations – a few on this site, many more behind the scenes – with some of our old writing staff. We wrote at RTT for eight football seasons, nine in basketball. During those years, the football team won 52% of its games, the basketball team 58%.
And it was fun. I’m so grateful that it’s always been fun.
It still is, of course. In some ways more than ever; winning, it turns out, is great!
Living in Knoxville, I’m just also finding a version of the very thing I missed that sent me to the keyboard all these years ago. It’s such a gift to even begin to find it with my kids.
And maybe most of all, we are deeply enjoying and deeply grateful for the life and community we find through our church (if you’re on the north side of town, come say hey sometime!).
I don’t think this is the last thing that will ever be written on this site or anything like that, though this is probably the first time I’ve felt like that was a possibility. I still have no idea how to be a pastor and not do this.
But as I’m aware of the changing rhythms in our lives, I wanted to let you know, and make sure to take the opportunity to say thank you, so very much, for being here. Those who’ve read the site over all these years helped create a very real sense of community for us, and I hope for you. I cannot tell you how meaningful it’s been for me, and how important it was early on when I was far from home and the people I loved. You’ve helped me grow up as a person and a pastor. And I still get such a kick out of sharing this together.
I remain just a kid who grew up in Knoxville who loves the Vols. Thanks for the privilege of doing that together, through all the wins and losses.
There was this nice string of days last week that went Vols in Omaha –> Julian Phillips in the NBA Draft –> Phil Steele arrives in my mailbox. Because the joyful weight of an #everythingschool is felt most on the calendar. This is June 29, and it’s time to talk about football. In a number of seasons past, that conversation started somewhere before March 29.
So here’s something else we’re going to have to get used to: I want to talk about 2023, but I’m not entirely sure we’re done having fun talking about 2022.
A couple of weeks ago, Bill Connelly released a version of his historical SP+ data based on points scored and points allowed, using it in re-ranking the best teams of each decade. It’s simplified from the week-to-week ratings we look at often each fall, but still informative, especially in comparing one season to the next. Not all 8-4s are created equal. As it turns out, not all 11-2s are either: the 2022 Vols rank third all-time at Tennessee.
Those of us who were around for the 90s (or 1970, still the all-time SP+ king of Knoxville) will shrug off this suggestion initially I’m sure; I did too. Last year was amazing, but whoa whoa on calling it the third-best in school history and all that. When we looked at a version of this data seven years ago at Rocky Top Talk, we found an example I’ve cited frequently since then: Tennessee’s highest-rated team of the 90s in SP+ wasn’t the national champs or one led by Peyton Manning. It was Heath Shuler’s 1993 squad. They’re still second overall in the updated rankings today, one spot ahead of 2022. That group tied #2 Alabama and lost a 41-34 shootout at #9 Florida. But in the regular season, they hot-knife-through-buttered absolutely everyone else.
So maybe think of it this way: play-for-play, Saturday-for-Saturday, who would the opponent least like to see running through the T? That ’93 squad, with Shuler the Heisman runner-up, is definitely on that list.
That’s now 30 years ago, maybe too far away for a clean comparison. And we’re still too close to last fall, too tied up in the giddiness of our feelings of what Tennessee Football won back. Maybe SP+ is your jam, maybe it’s not. But how else might we quantify last fall’s success, and corroborate the incredible leap we find in those ratings?
Consider this: the AP Poll went to 25 teams in 1989. Since then, only seven Tennessee teams beat multiple ranked foes by 3+ possessions (17+ points).
By my count, the Vols did it five times in the 1990s:
1993: #22 Georgia 38-6 & #13 Louisville 45-10
1994: #24 Georgia 41-23 & #17 Virginia Tech 45-23
1995: #18 Arkansas 49-31 & #12 Alabama 41-14
1997: #13 Georgia 38-13 & #20 Southern Miss 44-20
1999: #10 Georgia 37-20 & #24 Notre Dame 38-14
Before last year, Tennessee most recently accomplished this feat in 2006. And that group probably has the best one-two punch: #9 California in the opener 35-18, #10 Georgia on the road 51-33. (Shout out to the 1985 SugarVols, before the Top 25 era, who smashed #1 Auburn 38-20 and #2 Miami 35-7. That’s pretty good.)
But last year, the 2022 Vols became the only Tennessee team of the Top 25 era to beat three ranked teams by at least three possessions:
#25 LSU 40-13
#19 Kentucky 44-6
#7 Clemson 31-14
Some like to nitpick the value of wins using a team’s ranking the week of the game, and I get that, to some degree, at the end of the year. I think it’s foolish to discount that in the moment, however: beating a ranked team is a significant percentage of the why behind the fun. And while Kentucky may have finished just 7-6, LSU was plenty good as SEC West champs; Clemson was the season finale.
Also, as you may recall, we beat Bama; I don’t think the 2022 team is in extreme danger of being overvalued.
Whatever your thoughts on SP+ and 2022’s ranking all-time at UT – which, pun intended, isn’t always oranges to oranges – we continue to find ways to say that what happened last fall wasn’t just being back, but being present. That group last year was in the championship conversation. They got there by beating more ranked teams by more points than any Tennessee team we’ve seen come before.
And that continues to make me believe Tennessee will make themselves right at home in that conversation going forward.
Outgoing freshman Julian Phillips saw his decision to enter the NBA Draft pay off as an early second round pick last night, #35 to your Chicago Bulls. The headline for Tennessee, of course, is Phillips makes seven Vols drafted in the last five years:
2023: Julian Phillips, Round 2 #35 Chicago
2022: Kennedy Chandler, Round 2 #38 Memphis
2021: Keon Johnson, Round 1 #21 LA Clippers
2021: Jaden Springer, Round 1 #28 Philadelphia
2019: Grant Williams, Round 1 #22 Boston
2019: Admiral Schofield, Round 2 #42 Washington
2019: Jordan Bone, Round 2 #57 Detroit
For context, it took 18 years for Tennessee’s previous seven draft picks before the Rick Barnes era. That span is an even longer 24 years if you remove Ed Gray (drafted in 1997 after transferring to Cal), and consider the Vols had no one drafted for three years after Josh Richardson in 2015, or two years after Allan Houston in 1993. Tennessee also had no one drafted from 2003-2010 (though C.J. Watson turned out a really nice career in that span as an undrafted player).
Barnes had 17 played drafted at Texas in 17 years, a run that included only Myles Turner in his last four seasons in Austin. So the Vols are ahead on a players-drafted-per-year standpoint on the whole. The primary difference there is lottery picks: Barnes had five Top 10 picks in his time at Texas, including future all-stars LaMarcus Aldridge and Kevin Durant.
That group helped Texas make the Sweet 16 five times in seven years from 2002-2008, including a Final Four now 20 years ago. Possession for possession, Barnes’ best teams at Tennessee continue to be on par with his best teams at Texas. We looked at this when Tennessee was knocked out of the NCAA Tournament by Michigan in 2022: the Vols’ 2019 squad (with three draft picks of its own) is still Barnes’ best ever in terms of KenPom. The 2022 and 2023 squads join them in making up three of his top six over his entire career. And, as is the nature of the beast sometimes, his Final Four team at Texas in 2003 is just his seventh-best team overall in KenPom. That team earned a number one seed, something that has still eluded Tennessee overall. They did a good job navigating their bracket in the first three rounds, beating a 16, 9, and 5 seed before catching (and beating) 7-seed Michigan State in the Elite Eight.
I don’t know if lottery picks are in Tennessee’s future or even part of their desired master plan; that trajectory changed at the end of Barnes’ time at Texas, but the possession-for-possession strength of his teams has not declined at Tennessee. Meanwhile, the Vols are entering an entirely new category when it comes to the NBA Draft: a regular expectation of players drafted every year, as part of teams that position themselves as Top 4 seeds in the NCAA Tournament. And Tennessee has also done this with some of their most important players during this stretch – John Fulkerson, Yves Pons, etc. – going undrafted.
The Vols are third in Bart Torvik’s 2024 early projections and a two seed in ESPN’s 2024 bracketology. As with everything else on campus these days, Tennessee is in the hunt, and doing so as consistently in basketball as it has ever been done here.
Tomorrow will be 77 days until it’s Football Time in Tennessee. Today is one day until Omaha.
Growing up, it felt like football could always have the kind of year they just enjoyed in 2022. The Vols finished in the Top 15 14 times in 19 seasons from 1989-2007. There was always a reason to believe Tennessee would be in the hunt, and thus always a reason to look forward to next year.
And often times, there wasn’t much else to look forward to.
Credit the ladies for being the most consistent force on campus. Lady Vol Basketball was often so good, fans (including me) didn’t pay a ton of attention to them in the regular season. You just assumed they’d win. They usually did.
Softball has become the most consistent program on campus more recently, but they didn’t begin play until the mid-1990s and didn’t start making regular NCAA Tournament appearances until 2004. Their timetable comes after the peak of Tennessee’s football dominance.
So most off-seasons were long and very long, because there was no NCAA Tournament to look forward to in men’s basketball or baseball. It was once cause for celebration when the football countdown clock hit 100 days; now it’s at 77, and it feels like it hasn’t even really started yet.
In basketball, Tennessee missed the NCAA Tournament eight years in a row from 1990 to 1997. Baseball didn’t make the NCAA Tournament beyond their College World Series appearance in 1951 until 1993. They were a fixture there from that season until 2005, then didn’t return until Tony Vitello’s group in 2019.
From 1989 on, both men’s basketball and baseball missed the NCAA Tournament in the same season ten times. That includes some frustrating days in football in 2011-2012, plus seasons where we thought more was out there in 2015-2016. Those off-seasons were both especially long, and not that long ago.
How many times have men’s basketball and baseball made the NCAA Tournament in the same season?
Five. And four of them have been the last four seasons (minus covid).
The other is 2001, which followed an obvious rebuilding year in football from the fall of 2000. That was Jerry Green’s last basketball season, one of the harshest roller coasters this campus has ever seen. Baseball did make the College World Series that spring.
But other than that, this notion that we have reason for real investment in both men’s basketball and baseball in the same season has never existed until the current combination of Rick Barnes and Tony Vitello.
The first two years of their run included a Gator Bowl appearance and the subsequent end of the Jeremy Pruitt era in football. Then we got an upswing with the Music City Bowl.
Last Monday, we did some research on how the 2022-23 Vols finished in the Top 16 in football, men’s & women’s basketball, baseball and softball for the first time in school history. That ride ain’t over just yet:
Baseball always has the opportunity for the last word on an academic year, and the Vols are in Omaha for the second time in three years. We’re still adjusting on the fly when it comes to regular expectations and Tony Vitello’s squad, but here’s a version of a list we’ve had the pleasure of looking at in each of the last three Junes. As you’ll see, the Vols don’t have to be last season’s #1 landlords to make history.
Last Three Super Regional Appearances
Alabama: 2023, 2010, 2006
Arkansas: 2022, 2021, 2019
Auburn: 2022, 2019, 2018
Florida: 2023, 2018, 2017
Georgia: 2008, 2006, 2004
Kentucky: 2023, 2017 (two total appearances)
LSU: 2023, 2021, 2019
Ole Miss: 2022, 2021, 2019
Mississippi State: 2021, 2019, 2018
Missouri: no appearances
South Carolina: 2023, 2018, 2016
Tennessee: 2023, 2022, 2021
Texas A&M: 2022, 2017, 2016
Vanderbilt: 2021, 2019, 2018
Tennessee is the only SEC team to make the super regionals the last three years in a row.
How often do these teams get to Omaha? Here’s that list since the super regional format changed in 1999:
South Carolina: 2012, 2011 (three straight 2010-12)
Tennessee: 2023, 2021
Texas A&M: 2022, 2017
Vanderbilt: 2021, 2019
Tennessee is the only SEC team to make it to Omaha two of the last three years.
And here’s the biggest list of all, one more time:
National Championships
Florida: 2017
Georgia: 1990
LSU: 2009, 2000, 1997, 1996, 1993, 1991
Ole Miss: 2022
Mississippi State: 2021
Missouri: 1954
South Carolina: 2011, 2010
Vanderbilt: 2019, 2014
Still waiting: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas A&M
That’s a real thing that’s out there, again. Win a game in Omaha, and you’ll have the program’s first victory in the College World series since 2001. Win more, and more history is always out there.
Tennessee’s five-year strategic plan for the athletic department was released 11 months ago. In the “competitive excellence” section, the plan calls for the Vols to earn the top Director’s Cup finish in the SEC, and for each sport to strive for a Top 16 finish nationally.
In football, men’s & women’s basketball, baseball and softball, the Vols just did it in a single year, for the first time ever.
Tennessee baseball completed the sweep by winning the Clemson regional, advancing to the Super Regionals for the third consecutive year. Lady Vol softball is still alive in the Women’s College World Series, in the national semifinals tonight.
Lady Vol basketball scored their second consecutive Sweet 16 appearance this year, joined by the men in that round for the first time since 2019. And of course, football earned its first Top 16 finish since 2007, earning a New Year’s Six appearance and a #6 final ranking.
How significant is a Top 16 sweep in the five biggest sports? Softball started on campus in 1996. Since then, Tennessee only earned a Top 16 finish in four out of five sports once, in the 2004-05 athletic year.
Here’s the list of 3+ Top 16 finishes in these five sports in the same year at Tennessee:
1995-96
Football: #3 final poll
Lady Vols: National Champions
Baseball: Regional Finals (16 teams remaining old format)
1999-00
Football: BCS at-large, #9 final poll
Basketball: First Sweet 16 appearance in the 64-team era
Lady Vols: Final Four, lost in the title game
2004-05
Football: SEC East champs, #13 final poll
Lady Vols: Final Four
Baseball: College World Series
Softball: Women’s College World Series semifinals
2006-07
Basketball: Sweet 16
Lady Vols: National Champions
Softball: Women’s College World Series runner-up
2007-08
Football: SEC East champs, #12 final poll
Basketball: Sweet 16 (reached #1 in the regular season)
Lady Vols: National Champions
2009-10
Basketball: First Elite Eight in program history
Lady Vols: Sweet 16
Softball: Women’s College World Series semifinals
2013-14
Basketball: Sweet 16
Lady Vols: Sweet 16
Softball: Super Regionals
2022-23
Football: New Year’s Six, #6 final poll (reached #1 in the regular season CFP poll)
Basketball: Sweet 16
Lady Vols: Sweet 16
Baseball: Super Regionals (still going)
Softball: Women’s College World Series semifinals (still going)
Our favorite individual years might be dominated by football memories and/or their shared dominance with Lady Vol basketball. But right now, Tennessee is as nationally competitive in every major sport as they’ve ever been. Every one of these groups is creating the expectation to compete for national championships, and backing it up by positioning themselves well and earning a Top 16 finish. Of this year’s group, the baseball team actually had the lowest chance to advance, but that comes just one year after posting one of the most dominant regular seasons at Tennessee in any sport. Positioning yourself well for a Top 16 finish comes through earning a Top 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament, which the men and women both did, and through hosting a regional, which softball did. Baseball may have done it the hard way at Clemson, but it looks like the Super Regionals can come back through Knoxville after all.
We’ve spent lots of words over lots of years writing about Tennessee. All of those seasons were both interesting and meaningful in their own ways. But if you’re looking for competitive excellence? It’s here. And it spreads across the entire athletic department.
Lady Vol softball went through Alabama 10-5 yesterday, opening the Women’s College World Series with a bang. Up next: the two-time defending national champs from Oklahoma, who boast an average 57-1 record this season.
The two met last season, with Oklahoma winning deep into extra innings. The Sooners carry all the rightful hype that comes with rings and records, plus the localized crowd in Oklahoma City. But Tennessee – both Lady Vol softball and the entire athletic department – is well versed in taking on number one at this point.
In the last two athletic years, Tennessee’s five major programs – football, men’s & women’s basketball, baseball & softball – have faced a team ranked number one 11 times; Oklahoma will make 12 tomorrow. In those 11 games (or weekend series in baseball), the Vols have wins over:
Alabama in football, number one in the coaches’ poll
Alabama in basketball, number one in the AP poll
One win in the series with LSU baseball this season
A sweep of Ole Miss in baseball last season
It’s a byproduct of Tennessee’s overall success that the Vols have been able to score victories over the best of the best. Oklahoma’s resume is probably the front-runner in terms of overall quality of opponent, though Georgia football and South Carolina women’s basketball would certainly be in that conversation these last two years.
But also, consider the absurdity of the fact that each of Tennessee’s 12 meetings with a number one team in these five sports over the last two years came against a current or future member of the SEC:
2021 Football vs Georgia
2022 Lady Vol Basketball vs South Carolina
2022 Baseball vs Texas & Ole Miss
2022 Softball vs Oklahoma
2022 Football vs Alabama & Georgia
2023 Basketball vs Alabama
2023 Lady Vol Basketball vs South Carolina x2
2023 Baseball vs LSU
2023 Softball vs Oklahoma
That’s seven different SEC programs to reach number one in those sports in the last two years. Florida, who consistently boasts one of the most competitive athletic departments in the league, doesn’t appear on this list.
And, of course, we would add ourselves: just in the last calendar year, Tennessee reached number one in the college football playoff poll, number one in KenPom, and number one throughout last baseball season.
That’s pretty good.
And on such a pretty good list, maybe the most impressive feat of all could be accomplished tomorrow.
A couple of years ago when we lived in Virginia and Mississippi State was making its way through the College World Series, someone in our church asked what we thought about the Bulldogs as Tennessee fans. I’ve used that conversation to highlight the importance of change in SEC football scheduling: because we don’t, really. We don’t think about Mississippi State. We’ve played them twice in the last 15 years. Texas A&M will mark its 12th football season in the SEC this fall. If not for the 10-game league schedule due to covid in 2020, they would be making their first appearance in Neyland Stadium this October.
So sure, it’s gotta change, and it will. Soon, the Vols will see the Aggies and Bulldogs, as well as forgotten friends like Auburn and Arkansas every other year. Maybe it’ll be part of nine league games; maybe it’ll be with eight and the Vols getting to play Vanderbilt every year. Either way, we’ll soon get to enjoy things like Baton Rouge on a much more regular basis, and feel like we’re a rival in some form or fashion to everyone in the league. That’s how leagues are, you know, supposed to work.
In the short term, however, we might get an eight-game format that only works for one year.
For a year, a question has lingered in the SEC’s scheduling debate: Will ESPN give more money? Unlikely – right now.
Without $$ incentive, more than half the league supports 8 games in 2024 as part of a 1-year, temporary model that is under considerationhttps://t.co/s4btGz3myh
If you’re only worrying about one season, you can do the eight-game model with the “primary” annual rivalries (including Vanderbilt for Tennessee in this model), then schedule the other seven games at your pleasure.
While I’m not sure this path will automatically lead to the best possible outcome for the SEC, or automatically speed along a path to nine games, in a vacuum? It’s fun to think about which seven opponents you’d like Tennessee to play.
You don’t want to fantasy draft it and get all the marquee matchups – the league should still strive for some form of competitive balance here. The Vols shouldn’t hope for Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Texas, and Oklahoma (and Vanderbilt!).
But what’s the most fun/balanced version of that for Tennessee?
For whatever it’s worth, my picks for eight games in 2024 would be:
Vanderbilt, the default assumption as Tennessee’s “primary” rival with Alabama and Auburn keeping their in-state ties
Alabama, Tennessee’s actual primary rival now that we’ve shown it can be done again
Florida, because I haven’t seen any schedule with any support to suggest this rivalry – which helped define Tennessee as a program at its peak – is sticking around on an annual basis
Georgia, because I don’t think Tennessee should shy away from anyone if you can create balance in the schedule on the whole
Kentucky, the program Tennessee has actually played most often, at least for now. It’s 118 games in this one to 116 in UT/Vandy, which will soon favor the Commodores if the Vols and Cats stop playing annually.
South Carolina, because revenge in Columbia and all that good stuff
Ole Miss, the most direct path to get one back on Lane Kiffin, etc.
Texas, which purely gets the nod over Oklahoma due to recency. The stuff with Heupel and OU will be an interesting conversation whenever it happens, but the Vols played the Sooners in 2014 and 2015. Tennessee and Texas have not met since 1969. Remember the Alamo, etc.
If you’re just giving me one year, I’m not going with the aforementioned Mississippi States of the world. The Vols just saw LSU. And even Auburn – Tennessee’s number two rival when I was growing up in the pre-1992 world – I’d put off for another year. We’ll have all kinds of fun having both Tigers back in our lives on a regular basis. But if it’s just one year, it can wait.
Which seven teams (plus Vanderbilt) would you put on your wish list for 2024?
