Vols Football
Tennessee last won a football national championship in 1998. The fans have already done their part and the figures are checkable, 27 consecutive Neyland sellouts and an interest list 29,414 names long. What gets measured on this page is the other side of that.
Tennessee plays nobody for three weeks. Then Texas.
Tennessee's first three opponents average 98th in SP+. Its fourth is Texas, 6th. That 92 place step is the second steepest in the SEC.
Tennessee's schedule is easy on average and brutal at the top.
Tennessee draws the 14th toughest schedule of 16 SEC teams by average opponent SP+. Four of those opponents project in the national top 13.
Tennessee has a top 5 offense. Every other team with one has a top 10 defense.
Five teams project a top 5 SP+ offense for 2026. Four of them pair it with a defense ranked 9th or better. Tennessee's defense projects 44th.
Tennessee SP+ 2026: The Widest Offense-Defense Gap in the Top 25
SP+ has Tennessee 14th. The number is two very different teams averaged together.
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