Tennessee football: Did Vols reach top of Week 4 SEC Power Rankings?

And then there were five! The Southeastern Conference is down to just five undefeated teams, and Tennessee football is shockingly among them. Of course, with their bye this week, they’ll remain one of the only undefeated teams next week, when that number could go down to four. Who saw that coming?

As we get set to bring you our SEC Power Rankings for this week, it’s worth noting that regardless of who is looking best right now in general, undefeated teams do get preference. We have a good bit of information to go on at this point, including schedule strength.

Recency, style points and road vs. neutral site vs. home wins are also all crucial to these rankings. What’s clear, though, is that the tiers are a bit muddied outside of the bottom three. Who is the best of the undefeateds, though, and where does Tennessee football rank among them? Let’s break that down in our Week 4 SEC Power Rankings.

Josh Heupel’s Tennessee football Volunteers have a case atop the Southeastern Conference.

Lost to Alabama Crimson Tide 55-3

Sorry Vanderbilt Commodores fans. You’re back to 14th. You may say a blowout loss to the Alabama Crimson Tide shouldn’t warrant dropping three spots, but honestly, we can’t just write Alabama off as a sure blowout loss for every team. They struggle with some programs, and Vandy didn’t even put up a fight.

Now, that doesn’t mean Vanderbilt isn’t in much better shape than it has been in years past. This is still a program that already took a huge leap forward from 2021, and Clark Lea’s team should be proud of that alone. However, it’ll be hard to grow too much from there.

Like Tennessee football, Vandy gets a bye this week, and since they have already played five games, it doesn’t come at too bad a time. However, then things get brutal, as they host the Ole Miss Rebels and visit the Georgia Bulldogs in back to back weeks, so reality is about to set in. Still, they have some winnable games, including the next team on our list.