Tennessee football: ESPN power rankings add to month of disrespect for Vols
It started last week when Tennessee football was shockingly three spots out in the preseason Coaches Poll. Then, a week later, the Vols were one spot out of the AP Poll. This was a far cry from the hype behind them in other polls, and the trend is continuing.
ESPN left the Vols out of its preseason top 25 power rankings Tuesday. They put the BYU Cougars, Houston Cougars, and even Texas Longhorns ahead of the Vols. How does Texas ever get to be ahead of them given how both teams played last year?
Like the other polls, the Kentucky Wildcats were in the ranking ahead of Tennessee football too. They joined the Ole Miss Rebels, Arkansas Razorbacks, Texas A&M Aggies, Georgia Bulldogs and Alabama Crimson Tide to make for six teams from the SEC in this top 25.
Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama and the Pittsburgh Panthers are four UT opponents in the top 25 of these rankings. That’s all similar to the AP and Coaches Polls. What’s shocking, though, is that you’d think other media outlets would be friendlier to UT.
As we have already covered, other preseason top 25 rankings have the Vols as high as No. 20. Many analysts are projecting them to win as many as 10 games, and the Citrus Bowl is popping up as a realistic possibility for Rocky Top.
Athlon, CBS Sports, College Football News and ESPN itself all have some variation of those expectations for the Vols entering Josh Heupel’s second season on the job. It may be no surprise for such disrespect to come from ESPN, but it is when you consider it in the totality.
In fact, ESPN’s SP+ and FPI rankings both have UT in the top 25. You would think they would trust the methodology in their own analytical polls, but apparently, it’s not enough to favor Rocky Top, which is actually in the top 10 in SP+.
Luckily for the Vols, they’ll have the chance to erase these concerns very quickly. They face Pitt, who is ranked in all of these polls, the second week of the season. Sure, it’s on the road, but there’s reason to believe they can pull off the upset.
Next. Ranking all 12 games on Vols' schedule by importance. dark
After Pitt, their only two Power Five foes their first five games, the Florida Gators and LSU Tigers, both unranked teams. As a result, a 5-0 start is on the table for Tennessee football, and that could be enough to propel them not just into the top 25 but the top 10.