CBS Sports’ Brad Crawford isn’t anticipating a great season for the Tennessee Vols in 2025.

Crawford went with the Vols as his most overrated team in the SEC.

“Regression is coming for the Vols after reaching the College Football Playoff last season, which automatically puts 2025 expectations in the unreasonable realm,” wrote Crawford this week. “Four games against preseason top-20 teams from the SEC will ultimately determine the Vols’ fate…Expecting another finish inside the playoff conversation might be too much to ask.”

One of Crawford’s bold predictions is that Tennessee will finish the season unranked.

The Vols are ranked No. 24 in the preseason AP Top 25 poll.

“From preseason top 20 to unranked at year’s end, Tennessee’s 2025 season will be one to forget after making its first playoff appearance last fall,” noted Crawford.

The Vols certainly have plenty of questions to answer this fall — most notably at the quarterback and wide receiver positions. If Tennessee gets high quality play out of those two positions, then I think the Vols can very much reach the College Football Playoff for a second straight season — thanks in large part to Tim Banks’ defense. But if those two units struggle, it could be another up-and-down season for the Volunteers’ offense.

Tennessee’s players, for what it’s worth, love being doubted by the national media.

“The media is counting us out,” said true freshman quarterback George MacIntyre in July. “We love that. We want to go out there and prove ourselves this year.”

“The coaches don’t talk about it, and we’re just focused on getting better,” continued MacIntyre. “But we’d be lying [if we said] we didn’t see it. So it puts a chip on our shoulder.”

“I just love it how we truly do have this chip on our shoulder and that there’s not a whole lot of spotlight on us right now,” said tight end Mikes Kitselman to ESPN’s Chris Low at SEC Media Days. “There’s a lot of people that don’t expect anything out of us, and I absolutely love that you guys [the media] are going to look up at midseason and go, ‘Tennessee is 7-0. They’re doing it.”

We’ll circle back to Crawford’s prediction at the end of the season. We’ll give him his flowers if he was right, and if he was wrong, well, no one bats 1.000 on predictions.

Tennessee Volunteers News

‘We did not want to lose him at all’ – Previous Titans coaching staff regretted letting a former Tennessee Vols standout get away

A former Tennessee Vols standout from Nashville appeared to step into a dream situation in 2022. Former Vols defensive back Theo Jackson, a Nashville native who played at Tennessee from 2017 to 2021, was selected by the Tennessee Titans in the sixth round of the 2022 NFL Draft. Jackson’s time with the Titans, however, didn’t […]

Zach Ragan