The Tennessee Vols got run out of Neyland Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

Tennessee fell to the Vanderbilt Commodores 45-24 in a game that was never really competitive in the second half.

The Vols finished the regular season with an 8-4 record, which included an overtime loss to the Georgia Bulldogs and a road win against the Florida Gators.

Tennessee has to make some changes this offseason

This wasn’t a playoff or bust season for the Vols — not after losing their starting quarterback to the transfer portal during spring practice.

But this Tennessee team was talented enough to make the playoff. If they make the field goal to beat Georgia, and show up against a Vanderbilt team that didn’t beat a single SEC team with a winning conference record, then the Vols would’ve been strongly in the College Football Playoff conversation.

Self-inflicted wounds and defensive lapses, however, prevented this team from reaching its potential.

Now, it’ll be easy to say that since there were no big national expectations for Tennessee in 2025, then fans should be happy with an 8-4 season. And while I do think there’s some truth to that, it’s worth pointing out that Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel said on Saturday before playing Vanderbilt that the expectations in the Vols’ locker room never changed this season.

“The expectation certainly changed on the outside, it didn’t change on the inside,” said Heupel of losing quarterback Nico Iamaleava during spring practice.

Heupel needs to spend some serious time over the next couple of weeks evaluating what went wrong this season and why it went wrong. This team isn’t far away, but the same mistakes keep leading to season-altering losses (penalties, poor communication on defense, inconsistent execution).

I can’t sit here and tell you what changes Tennessee needs to make. There will be time to figure all of that out in the coming days. But Heupel needs to question everything — from his coaching staff to his player evaluations to his portal strategy (one change I will say needs to be made is that Heupel clearly has to give up play-calling duties for this program to have a chance).

If Heupel wants to survive in the SEC, he needs to adapt and evolve in a big way this offseason. Because he can’t run it back with the same coaches and strategy and expect different results. If he tries to do that, he may find out what a hot seat in the SEC feels like.

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