Category Archives: Football

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.

Grace and Peace and Go Vols,

Will

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.

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

— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) May 29, 2023

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?

We could get some news from Destin next week on the 2024 SEC football schedule, with the long-awaited debut of Texas and Oklahoma in the league. Everything in college football, from the expanded playoff to the return of the video game, is headed toward change one year from now.

Both of the proposed models would solve the SEC’s problem of teams not seeing each other for a thousand years. The 7-1 rotation in an eight game conference schedule would feature one annual opponent and seven rotating foes. The 6-3 rotation in a nine game conference schedule would feature three annual opponents and six rotating foes.

If you’re a Tennessee fan, which one do you prefer?

Staying at eight games keeps the league balanced with home and away games each year, which you obviously can’t do at nine. It also “protects” the opportunity for better records. In a 12-team playoff with six at-large selections, the SEC would certainly stand to benefit. Tennessee and Alabama would’ve both made such a field last season. With a nine game conference schedule, you’re playing five road games and four home games every other year. And a scenario could exist some years where the second-best team in the SEC ends up with a 9-3 record. How would the playoff committee consider such a team against an 11-1 counterpart from the ACC?

Moving to nine gives you an additional meaningful SEC game; it would be interesting to see if the league voted to keep its provision that each school has to play a power five non-conference opponent. More meaningful inventory could lead to more dollars for everyone through an adjusted TV deal.

And nine would certainly protect additional annual rivalries. A fun exercise for Tennessee fans right now: do you want to go to nine and keep the Alabama rivalry, or play eight and potentially be the only team in the league who plays Vanderbilt every year?

There are things to be excited about with either model. And either way, the league should strive for balance in breaking up the remaining opponents over the next two seasons.

Eight Game Schedule

In this format, let’s assume the annual rivalries look like this:

• Alabama vs Auburn
• Arkansas vs Missouri
• Florida vs Georgia
• Kentucky vs South Carolina
• LSU vs Texas A&M
• Mississippi State vs Ole Miss
• Oklahoma vs Texas
• Tennessee vs Vanderbilt

For simplicity’s sake, let’s assume teams would then play one of each of the above pairs in even years, and the other in odd years. This keeps some notion of balance in play; you wouldn’t want to play Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Oklahoma, etc. one year and play Missouri, Kentucky, Mississippi State, etc. the next.

If you’re Tennessee, such a breakdown might look like this:

• Even Years: Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma, LSU, Ole Miss, Missouri, Kentucky
• Odd Years: Auburn, Georgia, Texas, Texas A&M, Mississippi State, Arkansas, South Carolina

If we then break these down in balancing out the home and away portion, let’s take a stab at mock future schedules.

Mock 2024 Tennessee Schedule – Eight SEC Games

• 8.31 Chattanooga
• 9.7 vs NC State (Charlotte)
• 9.14 Kent State
• 9.21 Florida
• 9.28 Missouri
• 10.5 at LSU
• 10.12 bye
• 10.19 Alabama
• 10.26 at Ole Miss
• 11.2 Kentucky
• 11.9 bye
• 11.16 at Oklahoma
• 11.23 UTEP
• 11.30 at Vanderbilt

Mock 2025 Tennessee Schedule – Eight SEC Games

• 8.30 vs Syracuse (Atlanta)
• 9.6 FCS home opener
• 9.13 at Auburn
• 9.20 UAB
• 9.27 Texas A&M
• 10.4 at Mississippi State
• 10.11 bye
• 10.18 South Carolina
• 10.25 at Arkansas
• 11.1 non-conf homecoming
• 11.8 at Texas
• 11.15 bye
• 11.22 Georgia
• 11.29 Vanderbilt

You’d then flip the home/away components for 2026 and 2027. So in ’26, you’d go to Gainesville and Tuscaloosa but have LSU and Oklahoma come to Knoxville, etc.

The 2025 schedule is where it starts to look strange to me. You could have a year when Tennessee doesn’t play Alabama, Florida, or Kentucky. I’m not sure how deep in the weeds they’d go to balance out things like that, but if you base it somewhat on competitive balance, such a thing could easily exist.

Let’s give this a try with the nine game format.

Nine Game Schedule

In this format, we’re following the chatter and assuming Tennessee’s annual rivals are Alabama, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt. For competitive balance, we’re breaking up the other 12 teams in the same kinds of pairings in odd and even years. So you’d get something like this:

• Even Years: Florida, LSU, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi State, Kentucky
• Odd Years: Georgia, Auburn, Texas, Texas A&M, Ole Miss, Missouri

Mock 2024 Tennessee Schedule – Nine SEC Games

• 8.31 Chattanooga
• 9.7 vs NC State (Charlotte)
• 9.14 Kent State
• 9.21 Florida
• 9.28 at Mississippi State
• 10.5 at LSU
• 10.12 bye
• 10.19 Alabama
• 10.26 at South Carolina
• 11.2 Arkansas
• 11.9 bye
• 11.16 Kentucky
• 11.23 at Oklahoma
• 11.30 at Vanderbilt

Mock 2025 Tennessee Schedule – Nine SEC Games

• 8.30 vs Syracuse (Atlanta)
• 9.6 FCS home opener
• 9.13 at Auburn
• 9.20 UAB
• 9.27 Texas A&M
• 10.4 at Missouri
• 10.11 bye
• 10.18 at Alabama
• 10.25 South Carolina
• 11.1 Ole Miss
• 11.8 at Texas
• 11.15 bye
• 11.22 Georgia
• 11.29 Vanderbilt

Again, you’d flip the home/away in 2026 and 2027. So the Vols would go to Gainesville in ’26 and welcome LSU, etc. This one drops the UTEP game from the schedule in 2024, with no room in the inn for four non-conference games.

The college football fan in me loves the nine game model; I think it makes the most sense for a number of reasons, including the retention of the Third Saturday in October in a time when it is less disadvantageous to do so. Of course, if we’re making decisions exclusively through the competitive advantage lens, an eight game schedule with Vanderbilt as our annual rival is difficult to say no to; Tennessee has probably played the most difficult strength of schedule in the SEC for the last 30+ years of divisional play.

Either way, the fantasy element is fun to play with, but I’ll be eager to see the real thing, if we get any news next week or whenever. Which model would you prefer?

Tennessee’s sports calendar never really ends, which is great when you’re good at everything. Softball hosts their regional this weekend, while baseball is at South Carolina, trying to play their way into hosting theirs. The hope is both teams give us the chance to watch them play into the month of June.

This time of year also marks the full turn into lookahead season for football, led by the tangible sign of preseason magazines. It’s no longer way-too-early season. And though we’re still a hair more than 100 days to Tennessee’s kickoff on September 3, what’s being put out into the world by many prognosticators now represents their final draft of 2023 expectations.

For the first time since 2016, we don’t have to wonder if Tennessee will be ranked. The Vols were the proverbial last team in for the preseason AP Top 25 in 2015, 2017, and 2020. They were the first team out last season, the first “also receiving votes” in the 2022 preseason poll.

Now that we’ve rectified all that with a season as good as any other around here that didn’t end in a national championship, where will the Vols begin again?

In 247’s post-spring consensus Top 25, Tennessee was ranked tenth. As you’ll see, that would put them in excellent company with what this program was at its peak.

When we talked about Tennessee being back, that wasn’t just to 1998. Are you in the hunt? And, in a sport preparing to move to a 12-team playoff, anything in that range for preseason expectations is a good sign.

That’s exactly where the Vols found themselves in the proverbial good old days:

Tennessee in the Preseason AP Top 25 Era (1989-Present)

Rank	Years
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
13	1994
14	2004
15	2007
16
17
18	2008
19
20
21	1992
22
23	2006
24
25	2015	2017	2020

From 1990 to 2007, Tennessee was ranked in the Top 15 of the preseason poll 16 times in 18 years.

That kind of consistency in that kind of company is what this kind of program is looking for. Roughly, the Top 12 (six automatic qualifiers plus six at-large) is getting ready to be the cutoff point. So anything in that neighborhood to start the season means you’re, again, in the hunt.

Last year’s team put Tennessee back in the promised land. And I believe this year’s team is going to begin their hunt from the same kind of ground we’re accustomed to seeing the Vols stand on when things are working well.

Go Vols.

Something I find myself saying a lot – and will continue to do so joyfully – is that the 2022 team is best understood not just in how they left the wilderness, but that they found the promised land. It wasn’t just the first time in 15 years the Vols had a successful season by any definition. It was that, outside of 1998? What the 2022 Vols did stacks up against any other season you want in the modern era.

In my lifetime, I’d put them on the list with 1985, 1989, 1995, 1997, 1998, and 2001 as the Tennessee teams that came the closest to the mountaintop (you can add the 1990 SEC Champions if you want; more on them in a second). Those six seasons, along with 2022, featured landmark victories and the real belief that the Vols could be the best team in the country at various points along the way.

So…what do you do for an encore?

Here’s what happened the year after those years:

1985 (SEC Champions) to 1986

• 1985 Final Poll: 4
• 1986 Preseason: 10
• 1986 Final Poll: NR

The ’85 SugarVols cashed in on the promise of Johnny Majors and routed #2 Miami in New Orleans as their final act. They were the first Vol squad to finish a season ranked in 11 years, first in the Top 5 in 15 years.

In 1986, Tennessee went 0-3 in one possession games in the regular season, with each of those losses coming in September and October. The Vols lost to Mississippi State by four, Georgia Tech by one, and Army by five. They were also blown out by #2 Alabama and #8 Auburn.

But Tennessee did rebound down the stretch, winning their final five games including the Liberty Bowl over Minnesota. They carried that momentum into 1987, when they’d finish 10-2-1 and ranked 17th.

1989 (SEC Champions) to 1990

• 1989 Final Poll: 5
• 1990 Preseason: 8
• 1990 Final Poll: 8

Maybe the wildest of all seasons in Knoxville, the ’90 Vols went 9-2-2 and won their second consecutive SEC title. They tied a pair of Top 5 teams in Colorado and Auburn. They lost a heartbreaker to #1 Notre Dame, then won a thriller against former #1 Virginia in the Sugar Bowl. They blew out Steve Spurrier and #9 Florida 45-3, then suffered what I still think is the second-hardest loss of my lifetime to unranked Alabama 9-6. In the end, they finished right where they started: eighth in the polls, and SEC Champions once again. I don’t have them with this group of six teams because they played four games they didn’t win. But on sheer entertainment, this group is hard to beat.

1995 (#3 Final Poll) to 1996

• 1995 Final Poll: 3
• 1996 Preseason: 2
• 1996 Final Poll: 9

The only one of these teams to start the year higher than their predecessors finished it. Peyton Manning’s junior year saw the Vols give up 35 straight points to Florida in Knoxville at the start of the game before scoring the next 29 to almost come back. This team was still on track for a huge year, but lost at Memphis for the first (and only) time in program history. That sent the Vols back to Orlando, where blowing out Northwestern wasn’t quite the same as the showdown with #4 Ohio State that capped off the previous year.

1997 (SEC Champions, Bowl Alliance) to 1998

• 1997 Final Poll: 7
• 1998 Preseason: 10
• 1998 Final Poll: 1

The Vols were ranked third in the next-to-last AP poll of 1997 before getting blown away by #2 Nebraska in the Orange Bowl, a game that would’ve been for the national title if Michigan had lost the day before. Manning and his cohort left for the NFL. Fun fact: 10th was the lowest the Vols had been ranked in the preseason poll in four years.

It mattered little: this bunch finally beat Florida and ran the table, winning the national championship.

1998 (National Champions) to 1999

• 1998 Final Poll: 1
• 1999 Preseason: 2
• 1999 Final Poll: 9

And a lot of those dudes were back the next year. The Vols gave up five sacks to Alex Brown in The Swamp, but were still ranked second in the BCS on November 8. Alas: Clint Stoerner got his revenge, with Arkansas knocking the Vols out of the national championship conversation. Nebraska beat them in the Fiesta Bowl for a 9-3 finish.

2001 (Opportunity to play for BCS title) to 2002

• 2001 Final Poll: 4
• 2002 Preseason: 5
• 2002 Final Poll: NR

Man, that sentence about 2001 does indeed hurt a little less, at least to me, when you just beat Nick Saban.

Injuries and weirdness struck in 2002, the first truly disappointing season in Knoxville in almost 15 years. The Vols fumbled 134581740 times in the rain against Florida, the first of five losses, all to Top 20 opponents. Casey Clausen missed time after Tennessee’s six overtime win against Arkansas, the Vols caught the Miami superpower on the schedule, etc. A Peach Bowl blowout loss to Maryland put the stamp on a frustrating season, but Tennessee won 10 games each of the next two years.

So…what did we learn?

• All six of these teams started in the Top 10 in preseason. The 2023 Vols are 10th in 247’s consensus Top 25 from late March. Other than the 2016 Vols, who opened the year at #9, Tennessee hasn’t landed in the Top 20 of a preseason poll since 2008.
• Only the 1998 Vols finished higher than their predecessors. It’s hard to do when those are your predecessors! If you asked fans right now to take the over/under on finishing 6th in the final poll of 2023? Our spring expected win total of 8.65 regular season victories suggests an understanding that improving on last year isn’t necessarily at the top of our wish list.
• Two of these teams finished unranked, but the other four all finished in the Top 10. That’s program building, and it’s an interesting question for Josh Heupel in year three. The two groups that finished unranked were 1986 and 2002, coming before and after Tennessee’s “decade” of dominance from 1989-2001. So even though seasons like 1996 and 1999 may have had their disappointments, they still ended in the Top 10, and the Vols were still in the promised land, so to speak.

Where will the 2023 Vols start and finish? And can they show the program-building strength that can carry Tennessee into the College Football Playoff conversation every year?

Tennessee tied its second-best mark with five players taken in the first three rounds of the NFL Draft last weekend. The 2023 draft class joined 2007, 2002, 1998, and 1992 at that mark, trailing only the 2000 draft class with a boatload of players from the 1998 national champions. That draft saw eight Vols taken in the first three rounds, the clear program record.

The history major in me really enjoyed this stat from Jesse Simonton:

CRAZY STAT: Georgia's entire starting defense (+ No. 9 overall pick Jalen Carter, who didn't start) from its 2021 National Championship win over Alabama has been drafted.

DE Walker
NT Davis
DT Wyatt
OLB Beal
OLB Smith
ILB Walker
ILB Dean
CB Kendrick
CB Ringo
S Cine
S Smith

— Jesse Simonton (@JesseReSimonton) April 29, 2023

My first question: “Has Tennessee ever done this?”

If you use the starting lineups from the media guide in the seven-round draft era since 1994, the answer is…almost. The vaunted 1998 champs had nine starters drafted from its defense. Three years later, the 2001 defense had eight “official” starters drafted plus Teddy Gaines.

The 2022 Vols put four players from its record-breaking offense in the first three rounds. How does that compare to the best the Vols have done from that side of the ball in the draft?

You have to go back ten years to find the nearest context:

• 2012: Cordarrelle Patterson (R1), Justin Hunter (R2), Dallas Thomas (R3), Mychal Rivera (R6), plus Ja’Wuan James (R1) and Zach Fulton (R6) from the 2014 draft

This is Tennessee’s last position group to have two players taken in the first round…for now. CBS Sports has Javontez Spraggins in the first round of their 2024 mock draft. If he, Bru McCoy, any of the running backs or any others from last year’s starting lineup are taken next April, the 2022 offense will start reaching back even farther:

• 2001: Donte Stallworth (R1), Fred Weary (R3), Travis Stephens (R4), Reggie Coleman (R6), plus Kelley Washington (R3) and Jason Witten (R3) from the 2003 draft, plus Scott Wells (R7) from the 2004 draft.

Seven players from the 2001 offense makes for a strong total picture for that group, with 15 starters drafted overall. On one side of the ball, seven players from the 2005 defense were also drafted.

No surprise: it remains the 1998 national champs who have the overall record in the modern era, with those nine defensive starters joining seven offensive starters to make 16 overall draft picks from that starting lineup.

If you’re looking for the most impressive group on offense, you’ve gotta go back one more year:

• 1997: Peyton Manning (R1), Marcus Nash (R1), Trey Teague (R7), plus Peerless Price (R2) and Shawn Bryson (R3) from the 1999 draft, plus Jamal Lewis (R1), Chad Clifton (R2), and Cosey Coleman (R2) from the 2000 draft.

That’s eight starters from the 1997 SEC Champions, plus a non-official starter in WR Andy McCullough, taken in the seventh round in 1998. Three first rounders, three second rounders, and a third round pick. Chad Clifton made two Pro Bowls, Jamal Lewis won the MVP, and Peyton’s in the Hall of Fame. Cosey Coleman was a starter on Tampa’s Super Bowl team. And both Shawn Bryson and Peerless Price played 7+ seasons in the league.

Not bad.

So from this perspective, the 1997 offense sets the bar on that side of the ball, and the 1998 defense earns its reputation as the top unit overall. But here again, the 2022 group has already done things we haven’t seen around here in 10+ years…and with another strong season from some of its returning starters, could find itself in more of the same elite program history at Tennessee.

Go Vols.