Historical poll data will become meaningless in week two, with no Big Ten and Pac-12 teams around to fill out the nation’s best 25 teams in a given week. Take them out of the preseason AP poll today, and the Vols would be 16th. But whatever perception is worth, we […]

“Not one with Auburn and Texas A&M,” you might say. But with those two added to the docket, the order of opponents becomes much more important: if you’re playing five preseason Top 15 teams for only the second time ever, you don’t want to play any of them in consecutive […]

Three weeks ago we had some fun with post-pandemic fantasy booking, creating a 32-team college football super division. It was a fun exercise to pass the late-July time, but only fun because Tennessee would easily make any cut of 32: if you want to know who’s most likely to be […]

There’s no historical context for a 10-game SEC season in the modern era, so sure, you can make the argument that this kind of gauntlet, absent any FCS cupcakes or mid-major challengers, is harder than anything else the Vols have faced before. But as the major talking point is how […]

We said for weeks if the Vols added one of Auburn/LSU/Texas A&M and one Mississippi school, in any combination, Tennessee would be getting a fair deal. Turns out, not so much: the Vols travel to Auburn and host Texas A&M (for the first time! in front of few/no fans!). Our […]

While we’re waiting for the real thing, here’s my best attempt at a mock 10-game league schedule. The guiding principles: The two new opponents are added based on strength of schedule. I used preseason SP+ data to put each division in four tiers: SEC East 1: Florida, Georgia SEC East […]

When the Big Ten announced it was going to conference-only play three weeks ago, we looked at a balanced version of a 10-game SEC schedule if the league elected to move in the same direction. Like the ACC’s version, something like that would involve some willingness to get creative from […]