SEC hits copy and paste on Tennessee football's 2025 schedule

The Southeastern Conference has released the 2025 football schedule, and a lot has stayed the same for Tennessee football. Due to SEC schools being unable to agree on a conference format, the SEC will play without divisions in 2024 and 2025.

While the 2024 schedule will be different than what we are used to as Tennessee fans, there are some familiar faces on the Vols' 2024 schedule. Tennessee will continue to play Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt every year.

Tennessee and the rest of the SEC will continue to play an eight-game conference schedule plus at least one Power Five non-conference opponent through 2025, but that could change in the future with conference realignment still taking place across the country.

Home opponents: Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Vanderbilt

Away opponents: Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi State

Tennessee is essentially playing a home-and-home over the next two years, with no changes to the opponents on the Vols' schedule. Here are Tennessee's opponents and the location of every SEC game for the 2025 season.

This is an interesting strategy by the SEC as the conference could simply be buying time until the member schools can agree to a permanent solution to future schedules when everyone comes together this Summer.

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey cited conference realignment as the main reason for keeping the schedule the same next year: "We continue to monitor changes across college sports as they relate to future scheduling. Continuing with our current format for the 2025 season provides additional time to understand the impact of the changes happening around us as we determine the appropriate long-term plan for SEC football scheduling."

However, this goes against the SEC's initial reasoning for this schedule format. The whole point of the current scheduling format is that each school will play every school in the conference at least once every four years. This seems to no longer be the case with the updated 2025 schedule.

It will be an interesting year for Tennessee and the rest of the SEC with its new conference format. The best two teams in the conference will play for the SEC Championship in Atlanta rather than the division champions. The Vols now know their opponents for the next two seasons as they will look to make their first appearance in Atlanta since 2007.