Tennessee is entering the 2024 season with high hopes. With 20 victories in the last two seasons, they are highly anticipated around the country. There isn’t much time left for the Vols to make a run like the present because the College Football Playoff will include 12 teams in the upcoming season. Your schedule counts, as demonstrated by the CFP’s four-team era. Teams that put up a fight in their conference schedules and face respectable opponents outside of it typically win. One of the best grades in the conference for Tennessee is that they should be favourites in nine of their twelve regular-season games the following year.

After ranking every 2024 SEC schedule, SI.com found that Tennessee’s was the second-easiest, only behind the Missouri Tigers. With the exception of road tests at Georgia and Oklahoma, Tennessee’s opponents had a combined record of 78-69. The majority of their key games are played at Neyland Stadium. Here’s what SI had to say about the Vols, but you can read the entire article here.

“Big Orange must go to Heupel’s old mater, the Sooners, in the first month of the season and gets to face SEC East rival Georgia on the road late in the season. Otherwise, though, the Vols host Alabama at home and defeat the Wolfpack in a neutral location in Charlotte.” – SI on the Tennessee schedule for 2024

Now that the period is open, Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel is starting to travel the recruiting circuit. Having recently made his way through North Carolina, he visited Providence Day High School on Tuesday to see how five-star offensive tackle David Sanders Jr. was doing. The team feels they are in a strong position and has made Sanders a top priority.

Since his first year of high school, he has been in the public eye. As he approaches his senior season, the No. 2 overall talent in the 2025 cycle is highly regarded by three SEC programmes: Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee, according to the 247Sports Composite Rankings. Sanders is aware of the consequences of his choice in the building, and the Vols have dedicated a lot of effort to this recruitment.

Since moving to Knoxville, Tennessee, offensive line coach Glen Elarbee of Tennessee has done a good job of retooling his team. He performed admirably in the 2024 class, but in 2025 he has his sights set on a few big fish, Sanders foremost. Sanders’ ascent to the top will require a lot of work, but they will benefit if they can sign Brentwood Academy quarterback George MacIntyre. In order to ascertain why Sanders is such a crucial choice for Tennessee, we turned to the tape.