Vols Ranked In ESPN’s Post Spring Top 25

ESPN released their post spring top 25 rankings on Monday and the Vols, a trendy pre-season team, came in at #20.

From ESPN:

"The Volunteers have been taking baby steps to relevancy under coach Butch Jones, going 12-13 in his first two seasons. Now, it’s time for Tennessee’s recruiting success and potential to start translating into victories. Quarterback Joshua Dobbs and tailback Jalen Hurd are nice pieces on offense, and they’ll have four returning offensive linemen blocking for them. Tennessee’s schedule is also favorable, with only four true road games: at Florida, Alabama, Kentucky and Missouri."

I’m not sure about Tennessee’s schedule being favorable — they play both Oklahoma and Arkansas at home — but it is at least a little better than the past couple of seasons.

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A bigger concern for the Vols will be how they deal with being viewed as a team near the top, instead of being perceived as an “underdog”.

This will be the first season that Butch Jones, entering his third year at Tennessee, will have to deal with high expectations at the SEC level.

Who knows whether the Vols will live up to those expectations — there are simply too many factors to determine that right now.

What we are fairly confident about, however, is that Jones is the type of coach that won’t the lofty expectations affect his team.

Jones won’t let his team believe the press clippings. He won’t let them slack off and think they’ve “made it”.

If anything, Jones will just ramp up the intensity at practice to ensure his team is capable of meeting the expectations placed upon them.

The Vols need confidence but they also need humility.

I have a feeling that Jones will make sure they have a good combination of both.