Tennessee football: Vols top 25 S&P+ ranking more exciting than you think

Tennessee football’s Top 25 S&P+ projection for 2019 is more exciting for the Volunteers than that data even shows. Here’s a look at why.

The world was shocked on Monday when Tennessee football came in at No. 21 in the 2019 preseason S&P+ rankings. After all, this team was 5-7 last year and lost six of those games by 25 points or more.

How, without a Top 10 recruiting class, could this team make a jump into the Top 25 ahead of the 2019 season? Well, as S&P+ explains, the Vols return a ton of talent. With the exception of the defensive line, which is an issue, almost the entire team comes back.

The combination of that returning production and the recruiting impact was enough to vault this team. But the crazy part is this: the S&P+ production can’t even value some of the biggest advantages the Vols have.

One of the reasons expectations should be higher next year is Tennessee football’s schedule. They play eight games at home, and their only major non-conference opponent is the BYU Cougars. Considering they faced the West Virginia Mountaineers last year at a neutral site, that’s a much easier road.

BYU is their only non-conference opponent with an S&P+ in the top 100 of FBS play. And they come in at No. 50. The Chattanooga Mocs, an FCS team, are one of the other opponents, and then come the Georgia State Panthers and UAB Blazers. UAB lost so much talent that it dropped to No. 106 despite last year’s successful season.

So that’s one extra non-conference win. But what about conference play? After all, the Vols naturally play in the most brutal conference when it comes to S&P+ projections, as they are only No. 10 in the SEC alone.

However, two of their conference opponents, the Kentucky Wildcats and Vanderbilt Commodores, are significantly below them at No. 37 and No. 53 respectively. That makes six games against teams below them in the S&P+ projections this upcoming year as opposed to just three last year.

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To make matters even better, though, one of the teams ahead of the Vols are the Missouri Tigers, by five spots. Given the news of this upcoming bowl ban, that could change dramatically as they lose a good bit of their talent to other places across the country. Depending on what happens with their NCAA appeal, the Vols could have another easy opponent there.

Then they have the South Carolina Gamecocks, a team only three spots ahead of them in the S&P+ projections, coming to Knoxville this year. Last year, South Carolina was over 40 spots ahead of the Vols heading into the season and needed to come back from two scores down to beat them by three at home.

Finally, the Mississippi State Bulldogs are on the schedule as well, and they come in at No. 10. That is 11 spots higher than the Vols, but they also have to travel to Knoxville. So that’s a very winnable game for Jeremy Pruitt, who managed to upset the Auburn Tigers and Kentucky last year.

Simply put, Tennessee football’s schedule gives them an outside chance at nine wins, assuming they lose to the Alabama Crimson Tide, Georgia Bulldogs and Florida Gators. Last year, you had to work as hard as possible to find a path to six wins, and even with two upsets they still couldn’t get there. Better news for them is that they don’t have to waste too many home games with Alabama and Florida, sure losses anyway, already on the road.

When you factor in the Vols’ much easier schedule in 2019, they have a chance for dramatic improvement. We didn’t even mention the fact that returning production is a bigger deal for the Vols than most teams because last year you had a collection of players who spent the year learning the pro-style and the 3-4 defense. Adjusting to the new systems and offseason injuries aren’t even a part of the projections.