The Tennessee football program has gotten off to a strong start to the 2025 college football season, recently picking up a mammoth 72-17 home win over East Tennessee State to push their record to 2-0. Josh Heupel and company are hoping that 2025 is the year that they will finally be able to insert themselves into the national championship mix.
The team started out relatively low in the AP poll standings but has since moved up, thanks both to their own doing as well as some poor play from some of the teams around them.
During Sunday's new edition of the poll, Tennessee moved all the way up to number 15 in the country ahead of next week's big matchup against Georgia, a seven spot jump from where they were last week.
In fact, the seven spot leap was the biggest of any team in the rankings this week, and signals how impressed the voters have been with the Volunteers to open up this season.
Tennessee has been knocking on the door of something special for the last few years now under Heupel, including briefly holding the number one ranking during their blistering start to the 2022 season before ultimately falling off down the stretch and missing the playoffs altogether.
Last year, Tennessee did make the playoffs due to their new expanded 12-team format, but ended up losing to the eventual national champion Ohio State Buckeyes in blowout fashion on the road.
Now, Tennessee is hoping to re-enter that discussion, and they've gotten off to a good start for that goal this year, albeit not against the best of competition.
The Volunteers will get a chance against a much more accomplished opponent next week when they host their bitter rivals, the Georgia Bulldogs, at 3:30 PM ET from Knoxville. That game will be carried nationally by ABC.
