In Week 5, Tennessee cracked the top-ten for the first time since 2016, along with achieving its highest ranking since 2006 at No. 8. And with the team starting the season unranked, its rise wasn’t the product of preseason rankings.  

Well, not directly.  

Though they weren’t a part of the AP preseason top-25, the Volunteers might as well have been, placing just outside of it at No. 26 in Week 1. With Oregon and Cincinnati dropping out after Week 1, Tennessee snuck in just in time for its matchup with then-No. 17 Pittsburgh. It would go on to take down the Panthers 34-27 in overtime, an impressive win at the time, and its climb afterwards was significant.  

They rose nine spots in Week 3, four spots in Week 4 and three spots in Week 5, with a blowout win over Akron, a ranked win over Florida and top-15 turmoil being the catalysts for that ascent. 

That makes perfect sense from a week-to-week perspective, with their jumps after each ranked win being justified at the time. But if the College Football Playoff rankings had come out this week, would they have placed in the top-ten? 

I don’t think so, and I don’t think the oddsmakers in Vegas do either.  

There’s a reason Tennessee is only listed as a three-point favorite over No. 25 LSU at the time of writing this, and it’s not just because it’s playing a ranked team on the road, even with the opposing stadium being Death Valley. Put simply, its marquee wins against Pittsburgh and Florida are not impressive.  

For one, Pitt remaining in the top-25 two weeks after its loss to the Vols was a product of its easy schedule more than actually being a solid football team, and that was proven with its Week 5 loss to Georgia Tech. Its resume prior to that loss should have knocked them out beforehand, as struggling against Western Michigan and Rhode Island isn’t characteristic of a considerable team in college football.  

The Panthers held a one-score lead heading into the fourth quarter against Western Michigan and multiple two-score leads down the stretch against Rhode Island, scoring late touchdowns in each game to make each victory look less embarrassing. They rank near the bottom of the ACC in overall efficiency according to ESPN’s Power Index, with its offense being a large reason for that.  

Besides Tennessee, Pitt’s Power 5 matchups came against Georgia Tech, whose sole win prior to beating Pitt came against FCS West Carolina and West Virginia, who’s objectively the worst team in the Big 12 at the time of writing this. While the Backyard Brawl was fun to watch, it’s only because each team was on the same level of proficiency.  

So, when I look at the Volunteers’ seven-point, overtime victory over the Panthers in Week 2, I don’t see a ranked win, I see them surviving an upset. When I look at its win against Florida, I see a Tennessee defense that’s going to hold them back throughout the rest of the season.  

I know the Gators were playing from behind for most of the second half, but they shouldn’t have been in the first place. Their first two drives averaged about ten plays and 60 yards and resulted in zero points, and with a chance to decrease its deficit early in the fourth quarter, Anthony Richardson turned the ball over in the red zone.  

A turnover on downs in field-goal range, missed field goal and fumble in the red zone caused the Gators to miss out on a range of 9-to-17 points, and they still almost came back in the end despite being down by twelve with 1:11 left. That’s not an exaggeration; Tennessee allowed Florida to first put together a 71-yard drive in less than a minute, then the Gators recovered an onside kick and got to the Tennessee 39 to attempt a Hail Mary.  

Of Anthony Richardson’s 1357 total offensive yards in 2022, his performance against the Volunteers accounts for 38-percent of them. Despite playing five games this season, including an FCS opponent and South Florida, Richardson’s production against Tennessee was twelve percent short of half of his seasonal production. 

In fact, Florida managed to outpace the best offense in the country in yardage despite putting up just 329 yards in its previous matchup against USF, a team that has given up nearly 500 yards per game despite that outlier. The Bulls surrendered nearly a hundred more yards than that to Howard.  

So, in short, Tennessee might be Iowa in reverse. Despite its defensive performances against Ball State and Akron helping its opponent yards per game average out a little bit, it still barely scrapes into the top-100 in that category. Its run defense has been effective and ranks in the top-15 in yards per attempt, but its overall pass defense ranks near the bottom of the country (No. 128 out of 131).  

The point of this article isn’t to say Tennessee is a bad football team or doesn’t deserve to be ranked because neither of those things are true. I spoke highly of Hendon Hooker before the season and even then, he’s exceeded expectations. The Volunteers also sport a strong receiving room headlined by Cedric Tillman, who has recently been rejected as a first rounder in the upcoming NFL draft by draft analyst Todd McShay.  

In terms of offensive yards per game, they concluded last season in the top-ten against FBS opponents and currently, they rank No. 1. With that in mind along with the fact that they are undefeated, the Vols deserve a spot in the polls.  

But even the offense has cracks in it, with the offensive line allowing four sacks and sixteen quarterback hurries to Pittsburgh and three sacks and one hurry against Florida, and the running back pair of Jaylen Wright and Jabari Small having drops in yards per carry from last season. Tennessee rushed for 227 yards against Florida, but half of that production came from Hooker, who can only do so much at the end of the day.  

He can carry them out of a lot of holes, but when he gets put up against teams with skillful defenses, like Georgia, Kentucky and LSU, there’s a good chance they’ll struggle to crack 30 points. With the defense hemorrhaging yards by the bucket load, it’s going to be difficult for them to keep up. Not impossible, but difficult.  

This matchup on Saturday between Tennessee and LSU will be fun to watch, but don’t be surprised if the point spread turns out to be accurate.