Tennessee football snubbed in every College Football 25 ranking

Tennessee football missed out on every College Football 25 ranking put out this week by EA Sports. The game developer is releasing one of the most anticipated sports games in history this summer, with CFB 25 dropping on July 16.

While the game is coming this summer, they released the top teams and most opposing venues in the game. Neyland Stadium is known across the country as one of the most hostile environments, yet it didn’t make EA’s top-ten toughest places to play.

Neyland Stadium fell to No. 13 on the list, just outside the top ten, but it’s hard to argue that’s a fair landing spot with Kyle Field and Bryant-Denny being ranked about Tiger Stadium, Neyland, and even Beaver Stadium.

EA’s toughest places to play was just the first of a few snubs by the game developers. The Vols also missed out on the top-25 defenses in the new game.

The defense hasn’t been a strong suit of the Vols, but statistically, the Vols ranked among the top 25 defenses in the country last season and will bring a revamped and improved secondary to the table in 2024.

While Tennessee not landing in the defensive rankings isn’t too surprising, it is a shock that EA left the Vols offense off the offensive power rankings entirely.

Tennessee’s offense is ranked worse in the game than teams like Colorado, Miami, Missouri, and Clemson. Tennessee has beaten two of the four teams in the past two seasons. The other two teams had a combined 11-14 record last season.

The lowest-ranked offense in the top 25 is ranked 83 overall, while the worst defense is ranked 84 overall, meaning Tennessee will at least be in the low 80s and could be in the high 70s in both categories. 

To end the week, EA shared its top 25 teams in the game. With Tennessee missing the top 25 in offense and defense, it wasn’t surprising to see the Vols not make the top 25 best teams in the game either. 

What was surprising to see was the 25th-ranked team in the game, Iowa, ranked 87 overall. This is the same team Tennessee beat 35-0 in January, led by Nico Iamaleava as quarterback in his first career start. 

These rankings posed questions from Tennessee fans and mere fans of the game: Did EA forget about Tennessee? Did they accidentally not include the Vols in any of these rankings? 

We won’t know for sure unless the game developers admit their mistakes or we load up College Football 25 for the first time on July 16 and see Tennessee’s rankings have improved. 

Even ESPN has the Vols ranked No. 15 in their post-spring rankings. There has been a ton of hype surrounding this game, but this week’s rankings have drawn a ton of questions from college football and video game fans ahead of its July release.