How the national media is surprisingly showing the Tennessee Vols some major respect

The national media is surprisingly showing the Tennessee Vols some major respect in November.

Zach Ragan — Tennessee Volunteers News Writer
Add as preferred source on Google
Tennessee Vols
Wesley Hale-Imagn Images

Tennessee Vols fans and players are used to seeing the program get consistently disrespected by the national media.

Whatever the reason, it seems like the Volunteers never get the benefit of the doubt.

That’s why it’s likely a bit of surprise to fans that Tennessee is receiving some major respect from the national media in the final month of the regular season.

How the national media is showing the Tennessee Vols some major respect

Tennessee moved up two spots in the AP Top 25 poll this week from No. 23 to No. 21.

The Vols were off this past weekend, but they moved up two spots thanks to losses by Missouri and Iowa.

Tennessee is the only team in the AP Top 25 this week with three losses. That’s despite the fact that the Volunteers don’t have a single win over a ranked opponent this season.

Now, like many of you reading this, I’ve watched every snap that Tennessee has played this season. I think the Vols are a good team that needs to take a couple of steps to be a really good team (and a few more steps to be a great team). The Vols are a missed field goal away from beating Georgia. They’re also two catastrophic mistakes (pick-six against Alabama and a scoop-and-score against Oklahoma) away from having their losses to Alabama and Oklahoma play out much differently (not saying the Vols win either game if those plays don’t happen, but those plays certainly changed the way both games were played).

Tennessee has no one to blame but themselves for the position they’re in right now (which is that their playoff hopes are on life support).

But I think it’s notable that the national media, for the most part, recognizes that Tennessee is a good team that’s just had some unfortunate luck (injuries and things that have happened during the course of games), combined with a couple of poor decisions that led to their three losses.

Related Articles