Tennessee opens against Furman on Saturday. Then Georgia Tech, then Kennesaw State, then Texas.
Those first three opponents average 98th in preseason SP+. The fourth is 6th. That is a 92 place step in one week, and only South Carolina has a steeper one anywhere in the SEC.
Two teams step up further than everyone else
South Carolina goes from a 106.7 average into Alabama at 13th. Tennessee goes from 98.0 into Texas at 6th. Nobody else in the conference clears 82. Source: CollegeFootballData, pulled 2026-09-03.
The three weeks
Furman is FCS and carries no SP+ rating at all. I have treated it as 139th, one place below the worst of the 138 FBS teams. That is a floor rather than a measurement, and it moves the average enough to matter, so it is worth saying out loud. Georgia Tech is 42nd and Kennesaw State is 113th.
Drop Furman entirely and the two rated opponents average 77.5. The step into Texas is smaller on that reading and it is still the steepest in the conference outside South Carolina.
What it does and does not tell you
It does not say Tennessee is bad. The offense projects 4th in the country and this site has written about that twice.
It says the first three Saturdays will not tell you much. A team that is 4th on offense and 44th on defense should beat Furman and Kennesaw State comfortably whether the defense has improved or not, so the first genuine reading of this team arrives on September 26 against the 6th ranked opponent on the schedule.
Georgia Tech in week 2 is the one early game with something in it. 42nd is not Texas, but it is the only opponent before October that can lose to Tennessee without the result being expected.