Yes, Tennessee Is Still A Top-25 Team Next Season
Examining the overreaction to Tennessee's upcoming 2025 season following Nico Iamaleava's spring exit.
Tennessee is one of the most arduous college football teams to project next season. Before redshirt sophomore quarterback Nico Iamaleava left the Volunteers in the spring transfer portal window, betting markets placed the Vols’ win-loss projection total at 9.5 wins. At the time, this was tied for the highest projected win total in the SEC along with Georgia, Texas, and Alabama. After Iamaleava’s departure, oddsmakers slightly dropped Tennessee’s projected win total to 8.5 wins. Just a single projected win lower without their third-year, blue-chip quarterback under center. What’s odd, though, is that without Iamaleava under center, the reaction from some in college football media has been far stronger than the betting markets.
FOX Sports college football analyst and former star Colorado quarterback Joel Klatt left head football coach Josh Heupel’s team off his latest preseason top-25 rankings going into the summer. Saturday Down South’s Derek Peterson left the Vols off his Way Too Early Top 25 rankings last week. ESPN’s Mark Schlabach left Tennessee off of his Way Too Early Top 25 rankings two weeks ago.
Sure, it would be tough to argue that Tennessee’s ceiling this season remains the same without Iamaleava under center. However, even with Iamaleava gone to UCLA, Tennessee’s win-total projection still likes the Vols more than teams that have passed them in several of these aforementioned new preseason polls post-Nico. For instance, Schlabach has four SEC teams in his Top 25 rankings who all have lower FanDuel win-total odds than Tennessee in Florida, Texas A&M, South Carolina, and Oklahoma. This of course does not mean that the Vols will win more games than those four teams this season, but it does illustrate how much national college football media members do not believe in Heupel’s floor next season.
If history is indeed our best teacher, then that would tell us this will likely be a mistake. In 2021, ESPN Bill Connelly’s SP+ projection placed Tennessee with a 6.9 win total in Heupel’s debut season, but the Vols eclipsed that number and went 7-5. SportsBettingDime pegged the Vols at 6.5 wins, too, that same preseason. The following season, oddsmakers placed Tennessee’s win-total projection at 7.5 wins, and Tennessee went 10-2 and nearly reached the College Football Playoff. In four seasons, Heupel has only underperformed his preseason win projection in one instance. That transpired in 2023 when the Vols went 8-4 with a 9.5 preseason win-total projection. In the other three seasons, Heupel’s teams beat their preseason projections.
The 2023 season was a frustrating endeavor for a multitude of reasons, but after the dust settled, the record did not reflect how it felt for most fans all season long. In the regular season’s final AP Poll, the 8-4 Vols finished No. 21. To this point, Heupel has not beaten Kirby Smart’s Georgia Bulldogs either at home or away, and he has not beaten Alabama or Florida on the road. (As all Vol fans know, though, he is undefeated against the Crimson Tide and the Gators at home.) Even before the season, you didn’t have to squint that hard to forecast 9-3 as a reasonable result. The same was true coming into the 2025 season with all three of those games on the docket. Even with Iamaleava, for the Vols to make it back to the CFP, Heupel was going to have to win a game he hadn’t yet won while the head football coach of Tennessee in 2025.
The overlooked difference between the 2023 and 2025 schedules is that the team most like 2023 Missouri, the lone surprise loss that season, a Tigers team that thrashed the Vols in Columbia, is 2025 Oklahoma. Only, this season, the Sooners travel to Knoxville, and Heupel has lost exactly one game inside Neyland Stadium since the start of the 2022 college football season. Only Smart’s Bulldogs in November of 2023 have been able to topple Heupel in Knoxville over the last three seasons. Before Iamaleava’s departure, the Vols were favored by 5.5 points against the Sooners in Knoxville this fall. Yes, a lot can change between now and then and it already has with Iamaleava out of the picture. I would still be surprised to see Tennessee not favored in that ball game once we get there in November. What has not changed is that Heupel’s teams in the past at Tennessee have usually outperformed their preseason projections. Even with a below-average passing game the last two seasons the Vols have won 19 games and made the CFP once. Every single season under defensive coordinator Tim Banks, Tennessee’s defense has risen in the rankings in defensive points allowed nationally. The Vols return eight starters from that vaunted defense a season ago. Heupel’s teams have rushed for an average of 5.0 YPC every single season he has been at Tennessee. Tennessee was shut out in the first half for nearly a month straight last fall and made the CFP and won double-digit games anyway. For a QB Guru, Heupel has, ironically, and impressively, created a program floor that is essentially QB-proof.
Could all of Florida, South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Texas A&M be better than Tennessee in 2025? Sure, but it’s unlikely. Heupel has earned the benefit of the doubt when you examine his first four seasons in Knoxville. He’s won games with suspect play at the quarterback position for half of his tenure on Rocky Top, and the Vols were a game away from winning double-digit games in both seasons. There might still be questions about Heupel’s ceiling at Tennessee, but to see his floor questioned so much heading into Year 5 is quite silly, and I suspect something that lots of folks look back on this time next year and wonder why they overthought and undervalued the Vols and Heupel yet again.