Gameday on Rocky Top

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.

When I was a kid, I watched the NFL Draft from almost start to finish every year. And the only reason why was the Vols: nine players selected in 1991, nine again in 1992. Even when the draft was shortened to seven rounds, the Vols put 14 names on the board in 1995 and 1996 combined.

There’s a depth component to that Tennessee is still trying to build overall today. But in the early rounds, and especially on offense? You’ve got a chance to see it just about as good as it’s ever been done at Tennessee this weekend.

Here are the most recent comparisons overall; as with just about everything else regarding the 2022 Vols, it’s been awhile:

The Last Time…

• Three players taken in the first three rounds: 2017 (Derek Barnett, Alvin Kamara, Cam Sutton)
• Three players taken in the first two rounds: 2010 (Eric Berry, Dan Williams, Montario Hardesty)
• Four players taken in the first three rounds: 2007 (Justin Harrell, Robert Meachem, Arron Sears, Turk McBride, Jonathan Wade)
• Four players taken in the first two rounds: 2007 (Harrell, Meachem, Sears, McBride)
• Three players taken in the first round: 2002 (John Henderson, Donte Stallworth, Albert Haynesworth)

If we get to that last benchmark – Darnell Wright, Hendon Hooker, and Jalin Hyatt all have first round mocks out there – it would tie the UT record. Along with 2002, three Tennessee players were taken in the first round in 1998 (Peyton Manning, Terry Fair, Marcus Nash) and 1991 (Charles McRae, Antone Davis, Alvin Harper).

And if both Byron Young and Cedric Tillman join Hooker, Hyatt, and Wright in the first three rounds? You’d have five players taken in the first three rounds for the first time since 2007, and just the sixth time ever:

Five Players Taken in the First Three Rounds:

• 2007: Justin Harrell, Robert Meachem, Arron Sears, Turk McBride, Jonathan Wade
• 2002: John Henderson, Donte Stallworth, Albert Haynesworth, Fred Weary, Will Overstreet
• 2000: Jamal Lewis, Shaun Ellis, Raynoch Thompson, Chad Clifton, Dwayne Goodrich, Cosey Coleman, Deon Grant, Darwin Walker (that’s eight from the 1998 national champions)
• 1998: Peyton Manning, Terry Fair, Marcus Nash, Leonard Little, Jonathan Brown
• 1992: Dale Carter, Chris Mims, Carl Pickens, Chuck Smith, Jeremy Lincoln

Once again: other than the 1998 national champions, you can put the 2022 Vols in the conversation with any other modern era team at Tennessee. On-field success is getting ready to translate into the NFL.

Go Vols.

Plug in the win total machine and what do you get? A fitting 8.65 expected regular season wins for the Vols in 2023. That would make 9-3 our most expected outcome this fall.

We’ve been running this thing since 2017, making this easily the highest total we’ve seen in terms of preseason expectations:

• 2017: 7.94
• 2018: 6.65
• 2019: 6.55
• 2020: 5.40 (10 game schedule)
• 2021: 6.74
• 2022: 8.10
• 2023: 8.65

Good news for Josh Heupel: he’s two-for-two on the over.

Here’s the game by game breakdown from our fan community:

• vs Virginia: 81.5%
• Austin Peay: 98.5%
• at Florida: 63.9%
• UTSA: 92.0%
• South Carolina: 73.2%
• Texas A&M: 65%
• at Alabama: 32.9%
• at Kentucky: 67.8%
• UConn: 91.6%
• at Missouri: 75.6%
• Georgia: 33.0%
• Vanderbilt: 90.1%

A couple of things that jump out on the first pass:

We view the odds at Alabama & vs Georgia to be equal

The week of the Alabama game last year, fans gave the Vols at 38.3% chance of victory. That number rose to 46.1% to win in Athens the week of that showdown. If the Vols do their part, be assured the numbers will rise as we approach kickoff.

From April, these are the healthiest numbers against these two since we’ve been running the win total machine, by far. Last year in Week 1, fans gave the Vols a 19.8% chance to beat Bama and a 22.6% chance to beat Georgia.

What is Tennessee’s third-most difficult game?

The numbers say it’s still our friends from Gainesville, in what largely appears to be our final annual meeting after seeing each other every fall since 1990. Florida joins the triumvirate with Texas A&M and at Kentucky for the three games most likely to produce Tennessee’s third loss, if you believe Alabama and Georgia will be one and two.

A projection that avoids the word “rebuild” and would court the word “playoff” in 2024

This, again, is the most important part. Tennessee is getting ready to send a boatload of players to the NFL Draft; we’ll talk more about that next week. But Josh Heupel and crew have recruited and developed well enough to not expect Tennessee to fall off the face of the earth, or even entertain the idea of a rebuilding year after an 11-2 finish. It’s a win higher than what we projected in 2017 after the 2016 squad sent the last boatload to the NFL.

And a season where you think 9-3 is your most likely outcome is probably one win to the positive away from a 12-team playoff, if you’re 10-2 in the SEC. If such a thing existed in 2023, we’d be telling ourselves we had a shot. That’s the real prize that 2022 created for us. So while we’re not talking about playoffs in 2023 until we see what we can do with Alabama, Georgia, and the rest?

We’re in the right conversation overall.

Go Vols.

Hello, old friend.

With spring practice behind us, we unveil the first edition of our Expected Win Total Machine. Last season, we found running it after the Orange & White Game produced almost exactly the same result as running it the week before kickoff. Perhaps that would change if you had a quarterback battle extending into fall camp, but until that’s the case, we like putting it out here now to help take the temperature for season expectations.

Last year, those numbers were 8.10 expected wins after spring practice, and 8.03 when the Ball State game kicked off. You may recall it dropped to 7.93 the week of the Pittsburgh game, which means headed in to Week 2 we thought 7-5 was ever so slightly more likely than 9-3.

And then this happened:

This, coupled with Tennessee’s win over Clemson in the Orange Bowl, gave us our first unanimously great season in 15 years, and perhaps our “best” season since 2001. It was on par with just about anything that wasn’t 1998, and created the expectation that Tennessee’s program can be in the hunt when the 12-team playoff begins in 2024.

Until then, we’ve got one more run at the four-team format, and one last season with the SEC East on the line. I doubt we’ll see the Vols projected to finish with the kind of win total that suggests we think UT will overtake Georgia. But part of the fun of this exercise is seeing the percentages for each game. What kind of odds will we give the Vols against the defending champs? In Tuscaloosa? How high will our confidence go in taking revenge on South Carolina?

Find out all those answers here. Enter the percentage chance you give Tennessee to win each game, then hit submit to find out your regular season expected win total, and enter your total into our community database. We’ll be back later this week with the initial results.