Tennessee is expected to compete for a championship in 2024; What the Vols schedule could look like
The Tennessee Vols' goal in 2023 is to win a national championship. Most college football analysts, however, aren't picking the Vols to make the College Football Playoff this season. That's mostly due to Tennessee's loss of key players like Hendon Hooker, Cedric Tillman, Jalin Hyatt, Darnell Wright, and Byron Young, among a few others. 2024 […]
The Tennessee Vols' goal in 2023 is to win a national championship.
Most college football analysts, however, aren't picking the Vols to make the College Football Playoff this season.
That's mostly due to Tennessee's loss of key players like Hendon Hooker, Cedric Tillman, Jalin Hyatt, Darnell Wright, and Byron Young, among a few others.
2024 is generally accepted by analysts as the season when Tennessee will truly be able to compete for a championship under Josh Heupel.
Highly-touted quarterback Nico Iamaelava will be a sophomore (or redshirt freshman) in 2024. And the defense should have the depth to perform at an extremely high level by then. It could also be the first season since 1991 that Tennessee doesn't have to play Georgia.
The SEC will move to a new scheduling format in 2024 with Oklahoma and Texas officially joining the conference. The expectation is that the SEC will move to a 3-6 scheduling format (which would be three permanent opponents with six rotating opponents each season). That would mean that every SEC program would meet at least twice every four seasons (a player who stays four seasons at one program would visit every SEC stadium at least once during his career).
If the Vols are going to compete for a championship in 2024, then they'll need the schedule to cooperate (and not playing Georgia would be a good start). A nine-game schedule will obviously be more difficult, but every program in the conference will be dealing with that same challenge.
Here's how Tennessee's 2024 schedule could shake out (with the assumption that Alabama, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt will be the Vols' three permanent opponents).
Note: Tennessee has a game scheduled with Kent State in 2024, but it will be canceled if the SEC moves to a nine-game conference schedule. There is a clause built into the contract that allows UT to cancel the game without a financial penalty.
- Week 1: Tennessee vs Chattanooga (scheduled for August 31)
- Week 2: Tennessee vs NC State (scheduled for September 7 in Charlotte)
- Week 3: Tennessee vs Florida
- Week 4: Tennessee @ Arkansas
- Week 5: Tennessee @ Oklahoma
- Week 6: Tennessee vs Kentucky
- Week 7: Tennessee vs Alabama
- Week 8: Tennessee @ Ole Miss
- Week 9: Tennessee vs Auburn
- Week 10: Tennessee @ South Carolina
- Week 11: Tennessee vs UTEP (scheduled for November 23)
- Week 12: Tennessee @ Vanderbilt
A couple of things here. For one, I think the SEC will want to schedule Heupel's return to Oklahoma in 2024 to go ahead and take advantage of that storyline. Also, I have the Vols down for four conference home games and five conference away games in 2024. That's kind of just how it shakes out if you keep South Carolina, Vanderbilt, and Alabama on their current rotation. It also ensures that Tennessee will have two "easier" home games the year they play Alabama on the road.
Something else to note is that Tennessee has neutral site games scheduled for 2024 and 2025 (against Syracuse in Atlanta), so that takes away a true home game in both seasons (though in the future that could also be the case in some years with a home-and-home series against a Power-5 opponent). 2025 would feature five conference home games if 2024 only has four conference home games.
If this is how the schedule shakes out in 2024, then it means in 2025 that Tennessee would face its three permanent opponents along with Georgia, Mississippi State, LSU, Missouri, Texas, and Texas A&M.
There will never be an "easy" schedule for the Vols under this format (not that there was before with Alabama, Florida, and Georgia on the schedule annually). But with a 12-team playoff coming in 2024, it means Tennessee can probably afford two regular-season losses each year and still have a really good shot to make the playoff.
