Josh Heupel's successor at prior stop puts a strange SEC team over Tennessee Vols in final coaches poll ballot
The Tennessee Volunteers wrapped up their 2024 season by making the College Football Playoff for the first time in program history, losing 42-17 to the eventual national champion Ohio State Buckeyes in the first round. The final coaches poll came out on Tuesday, and Tennessee checked in at #8, just ahead of Boise State and […]
The Tennessee Volunteers wrapped up their 2024 season by making the College Football Playoff for the first time in program history, losing 42-17 to the eventual national champion Ohio State Buckeyes in the first round.
The final coaches poll came out on Tuesday, and Tennessee checked in at #8, just ahead of Boise State and one spot behind Arizona State. The votes of the coaches have been released, and most were in line with that range of results.
However, one coach whose vote was far from it is now-former UCF head coach Gus Malzahn. The former Auburn head coach took over at UCF after Josh Heupel was named the head coach of the Vols back in January 2021, and he held the job until he resigned at the end of the Golden Knights' disappointing 2024 season. It doesn't appear, from his vote at least, that he thinks as highly of his predecessor's season as most of the other coaches around the country.
Malzahn, who is the new offensive coordinator at Florida State, had Tennessee 12th, but it's who he had in front of Tennessee that's baffling: Missouri.
The Tigers, who finished 20th in the final coaches poll and 22nd in the final AP poll, ended their regular season 9-3 and without any kind of meaningful win on their resume. They also had two 31+ point blowout losses to Texas A&M and Alabama.
But apparently that 27-24 win over Iowa in the Music City Bowl was enough to convince Malzahn that Missouri deserved to be ranked higher than a playoff team who lost on the road against the eventual national champion.
Other coaches who actually played Tennessee had the Vols in the same position as their College Football Playoff ranking of 7 (they were seeded ninth based on conference championship byes). Alabama's Kalen DeBoer, Georgia's Kirby Smart, and Kentucky's Mark Stoops all had the Vols at 7 in their ballots. Even former Tennessee and current Arkansas State head coach Butch Jones had the Vols there as well.
However, ballots like Malzahn's just show how silly and fickle the voting process in college football can be. It's all in the eye of the beholder, but sometimes, you have to wonder if they need to upgrade their glasses prescription. It appears Malzahn does.
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