Phil Steele predicts order of finish for SEC Football in 2025

[unfrozencvmanvol]

thinking this is a critical year for Josh Heupel’s tenure in Knoxville is pretty stupid. He ain’t going anywhere unless he wants to go.

He shouldn't in a sane world, but we don't live in a sane world. If we were to underperform this year there would be noise. We'd have to go 4-8 or something crazy like that for him to be in real trouble this year though.

 

[HuntlandVolinColo]

I'd just like to know what makes him think OK will be that much better. They have to go to Neyland and I think AL. They have one of the worst conference schedules to play.

 

[wmcovol]

Wouldn't say "critical', but I do think it's a pivotal year. This is now his roster and his chosen staff. He'll get a bit of grace due to Nico's departure, but let's not forget who hand picked Nico. Eventually, the buck will end up with Heupel, and I think this year might be the one where the worm turns for him. The pressure will grow over the next couple of seasons I suspect leading to his situation becoming "critical". As for next season, Steele seems spot on overall, but he's a bit generous with UT. I think SCjr will have a better season when it's all said and done so we'll finish behind them in the SEC. 7 wins seems about right for this bunch....maybe 8 with a bit of luck and we stay healthy which is far from being a given.

Logical people know the situation Heupel inherited in ‘21. They knew recruiting was going to be tough in 2022 & 2023 with opponents negative recruiting until the NCAA penalties & scholly reductions were worked thru. That was determined in ‘23 & recruiting has improved since then. This is a young team but very talented. Heupel has earned trust from those in control.

 

[AllVol11717]

I think holding reporters accountable to their predictions is warranted. If they don't think there should be criticism, they should stay away from making such predictions. You can be sure they will point out when their predictions are accurate. As for our team, we have finished the last two seasons with 9 and 10 wins despite having mediocre passing offenses. What actual justification is there to assume that win total drops to 7 this year with our schedule? Are there question marks? Absolutely. There are also significant question marks with several other teams he has ranked high than us. For instance:

Georgia-Is Gunnar Stockton going to be a successful QB? He didn't look great in limited action last year. They are replacing basically their entire WR, RB and OL groups as well as a lot of the defense.

Alabama-Ty Simpson is quite possibly more of an unknown than Joey Aguilar. He had a whopping 25 pass attempts in mop up duty last year and a grand total of 50 attempts across 3 seasons. He has yet to throw a TD in college. Now, we are just supposed to assume he is an improvement over Milroe? Their returning RB production is similar to ours. WR and OL are more of a certainty than we have. They probably have fewer questions what appears to be much tougher schedules. on defense but their defense wasn't nearly as dominant as our last year, either.

Oklahoma-John Mateer was really good at WSU last year but how will that translate to the SEC and one of the toughest schedules in the country? Their OL was hot garbage last year and they didn't do much to change that. They return a lot of offensive production but that group was absolutely terrible last season. While they could certainly be better than they were last year, how do you justify them making the jump from a 6-7 team to one of the top four in the conference, particularly with the schedule they have.

LSU, A&M and Florida should be better but they have questions as well. All three seem to have fewer uncertainties than we do but they also have what appears to be much tougher schedules.

I’m not saying you can’t hold reporters accountable, I’m saying acting like a child because a reporter didn’t get 100% (which no one does) on their preseason predictions doesn’t suddenly invalidate their opinions.

And I’m not saying others don’t have questions but we can’t even pretend like UGA and Bama’s situation’s are on the same level as ours. Their overall talent levels and consistency of results buys them much more leeway in regards to questionable QB situations.

Hell Kirby took an alcoholic walk-on and won back to back titles with him. CJH just had his starting QB ditch his team and replaced him with a guy who had an inconsistent year at App St. Not to mention he has had two years in a row of an unspectacular passing offense and we just lost the RB that bailed us out. I’m a huge CJH fan, but this is an outside, objective opinion. Between the QB shake up and the playoff blowout we have to a lot to prove this year.

I agree on OU and the rest though. UF and A&M don’t impress me too much, but they have more optimism because they have young electric QBs. LSU all depends on if Nuss is truly a #1 overall pick kinda guy but either way they have a solid QB under center if they can replace their OTs.

 

[SubVet676]

My Granny...God-fearing and good woman...could call next weeks weather better than Phil Steele can predict an SEC teams finish.

She was probably a better cook than him, too. Lord knows her biscuits and fried chicken were to die for.

Lemme take a crack at it, though. Hmmm...I'll go with Texas and UGA to finish up top...maybe Bama and LSU on their heels...gotta think Ole Miss and TXAM might have a say in it...USCe and UT fight for #3 in the East...UF could go either (Lag)way...maybe OU makes some noise...then there's Auburn and Mizzou...and then Arky, Missed-it-sippi State, UK, and Vandy fighting to see who gets to pick the color of the curtains in the SEC basement.

So...4 fighting for the top 2...2 waiting in the wings...2 more with potential to pull an upset...1 potential dark horse...and 7 trying to get bowl eligible.

How'd I do? Time will tell.

 

[Manchester Vol]

Those synopses are dookie.

 

[LegionnaireOfTheMiserable]

They still have basically the same OL as last year. Also, schedule matters. This season, OU plays Michigan, Auburn, Texas, @South Carolina, Ole Miss, @ Tennessee, @ Alabama, Missouri and LSU. To go 9-3 or better, they would have to win at least 6 of those games.

It’s not a gimme. I would bet under 8.5 if I had to because I don’t believe in Venables. But I would say that at least 3 of the teams you mentioned probably end up being pretty beatable this year. That’s just how things go. Not every team with some reason for optimism will end up in the right side of things.

 

[LegionnaireOfTheMiserable]

While that is true, we also were leading in one of our two losses with less than two minutes to go and were within a TD with less than five minutes remaining in the other loss, both on the road. Saying we could be a few plays worse is assuming everything else will remain static.

But things didn’t remain static. We replaced most of the starters and some good depth pieces. And we didn’t bring in many instant impact guys to replace them.

 

[LegionnaireOfTheMiserable]

Nico was actually terrible and slow processing, The OL is gonna be better and they arent having trouble finding productive backs every yr


Safety play hasnt been truly good in years man. It wont be any worse than it always is.


Sry but i just dont see squirrel and the 2024 version of bru as a loss


Bru lost it unfortunately and squirrel can only run straight at 150lbs. A kid that small and fast shouod be able to catch and run but he absolutely cannot do it unless its completely vertical. Also, the #2 TE was not any good. The staff couldnt care less that hes gone.

I agree that Nico wasn’t good. I was ready to move on before it was fashionable. But there is a strong likelihood that we didn’t improve there.

I don’t think it is a given that the OL improves. I think Moe will be a stud from day 1. I think Sanders will be eventually, but probably not this year. We are losing a lot of experience from an O Line that was a finalist for O Line of the Year. Improvement is no given.

Running back should be fine. Last year it was way better than fine, we had the SEC Player of the Year. That isn’t easy to replace.

Safety play hasn’t been very good for a long time. Losing the best one doesn’t lend itself to it getting better, though.

Squirrel and Bru weren’t great last year. Other than Matthews though, we don’t have anyone who anyone ever really expected great things from. The freshmen will likely have little impact, as freshmen rarely do at that position here, and none of them are thought of in the J Smith or R Williams category. It is likely a drop off. I don’t think Staes was great, but losing him and having Kitselman miss all offseason due to injury means that we probably aren’t gonna improve much there, either.

You can poo poo everything we lost, but if virtually the whole team was just playing in front of better options, that brings up bigger questions.

 

[Behr]

They still have basically the same OL as last year. Also, schedule matters. This season, OU plays Michigan, Auburn, Texas, @South Carolina, Ole Miss, @ Tennessee, @ Alabama, Missouri and LSU. To go 9-3 or better, they would have to win at least 6 of those games.

If the team was Tennessee instead of Oklahoma, Vanderbilt, New Mexico st or anyone else he'd predict 5-7.

 

[wmcovol]

Phil Steele didn't have 4 of the (end-of-season) top-10 teams even listed in his top-25 teams for 2024... Including Tennessee.

Had Alabama #6 (went 9-4).
Had Oklahoma #7 (went 6-6).

Oops.

Seems Phil uses a dart board to simply guess, so his "predictions" are total ****.

Picking OU last year high wasn’t very intelligent. Going into the season they had major OL issues & an inexperienced QB. Knowledgeable fb people say that’s not a good combination

 

[MurphyVol]

The mistake Steele is making is thinking Nico was the reason for our offensive success the last 2 years. He wasn’t.

If he thinks this, I would feel super confident in telling him he's wrong...especially about the two years part.

 

[Go47]

I like seasons where expectations are not super high. It seems like (at least historically) the Vols do their best work as underdogs.

Talent wise and question marks taken into consideration (QB / especially oline / losses on defense / loss of Sampson / big questions at WR) . . . I think this team will be 7-5 at worst and 9-3 at best.

Bama’s oline should be really good and that will potentially hide their unknown at QB. They have (probably) the 2nd best WR in all of NCAA football. Having said that . . . It’s a rivalry game.

Florida game at the swamp - hard to see us winning that one. Lagway is good /
Their oline will be good. Again - rivalry game so who knows . . . But our history at the swamp is miserable.

UGA out talents us at almost every position.

After those 3 games . . . I think we are pretty even or better than the other teams we face.

 

[mpfvol]

Bama and Sooners that high LOL ok then . And one thing with this vols staff the D line is gonna be bringing the pain .

 

[zeppelin128]

This wasn't as terrible as y'all made it out to be lol.

That upper-middle tier of the SEC behind Georgia and Texas is going to be very competitive. Main thing I would change is dropping Florida and Oklahoma behind Tennessee and South Carolina. Their schedules are brutal as hell, especially Oklahoma. Having them at 4th is quite the stretch.

Also, Texas 8&5 probably has no business being top 6. Aggies are perpetually overrated.