Tennessee football underrated in AP Poll, national pundit says

Should the Tennessee football Volunteers have been higher ranked in the top 25?

Despite finishing last year with an 8-5 record and on a six-game winning streak, bringing in a top 10 recruiting class and returning tons of starters, Tennessee football is barely considered a top 25 team. They came in right at No. 25 in the preseason 2020 AP Poll Monday.

That ranking comes a couple weeks after the Coaches Poll had the Vols one spot out at No. 26. Of course, they are No. 16 and No. 17 in the adjusted AP and Coaches Polls respectively when you take out the schools not playing this fall, but some people still consider them underrated.

Tom Fornelli of CBS Sports listed Rocky Top as one of his two underrated teams for 2020. Joining them were a rival, the unranked Kentucky Wildcats. Another opponent, the No. 11 ranked Auburn Tigers, were listed as overrated. Here’s a bit of what Fornelli said about UT’s ranking.

"If we look at the teams in the poll ranked higher than Tennessee planning to play this fall, we see No. 23 Iowa State, No. 21 UCF and No. 20 Cincinnati directly above them. UCF and Cincinnati I’m not going to quibble with. The Bearcats won 11 games last season, and UCF has been a Group of Five powerhouse for a few years now.Iowa State went 7-6 last year and was 5-4 in the Big 12. Tennessee was 8-5 and went 5-3 in the SEC. So not only did Tennessee have a better record, but it achieved that record in the more difficult conference."

Of course, Fornelli has a point. How could Tennessee football be behind the Cyclones after having a better record in a tougher conference, a higher-ranked recruiting class coming in for this year and more high-profile starters returning? None of that makes sense.

Still, it’s fair to question if the Vols should be a top 25 team. After all, they didn’t beat a ranked team at all last year, and they only beat two Power Five teams who finished the season with a winning record, Kentucky and the Indiana Hoosiers.

Now, UT did beat the UAB Blazers, a Group of Five team that finished with a winning record, and they beat two more Power Five teams that finished the regular season .500 in the Mississippi State Bulldogs or Missouri Tigers, but they could have been more impressive.

Simply put, it will be up to Rocky Top to prove that it’s being underrated, and with half its games against higher-ranked teams this year, that will certainly be possible. Jeremy Pruitt’s team has plenty to prove.

The Miami Hurricanes and Oklahoma State Cowboys were the other two overrated teams on Fornelli’s list. Miami is unranked, but he criticized them receiving more votes than other schools. Oklahoma State is ranked No. 15. Could Tennessee football prove to be better than these schools and Auburn? That would be a solid accomplishment.