Vols #17 in final AP poll.

[VAVol85]

uga lost to bama. Bama lost to texas who lost to washington. Yes I think uga could have lost to washington. Sure they could have won too but based on the results on the field they rankings are appropriate at the top.

But why in the world are we defending uga? If I had a vote I'd rank them 130 just because of that poor inbred dog they use as a mascot that dies prematurely!

Spoken like a true GT fan…to h3ll with Georgia!

 

[Volbackhomefromtx]

To take off on a quote by Will Roger’s, I never met a poll that I liked. (Exception -some Tennessee baseball polls in 2022).

All polls are subjective. Nowadays, I think many (most) are either agenda driven (create clicks) or political. Rece Davis knew exactly what he was doing.

 

[JCHateSteve]

Iowa should not be ranked.

They're the lowest ranked 10 win team from a power conference. When I look at the teams below them I'm not sure who I would rank higher. The only 9 win team I see behind them is WV. After that you have to get into the group of five or 8 win teams.

 

[xpsyclonex2002]

Pretty accurate except I don't know how FLST is in the top 10.

 

[volsrock09]

Rece Davis left Tn off his top 25. WTF? fyar da fool.

And put Iowa at 18……..no one with a brain truly thinks Iowa is better than UT after a 35-0 beat down.

 

[bpalmer28]

No bad for a rebuilding year

 

[daj2576]

These rankings are somewhat of a joke. Just because Georgia didn't make the college football playoffs don't mean they are #4. It doesn't add up if they still have Florida State ranked #8 after giving up about 9 touchdowns. Oklahoma State ranking is a farce as well. These ranking don't mean much at this point anyway.

Last year TCU lost 2 of their last three games and went up in the rankings.

 

[General Jack]

I don’t see why we can’t make a run this year.

Playoff or bust for 2024 IMO.

 

[chattavol420]

Solid end to a year. I think next year if we can finish around the same we should be poised for a National Championship run come Nico’s Sophmore-Junior year. I look forward to it for sure!!

Some of her fans just really shock me. This year we lost to Bama, Florida, UGA, and even throw in Missouri. You are essentially saying it would be a successful year if all that happened again. lol. Not hating on you man… We’re all on the same team, but I think some of us are perpetually suffering from BVS. It’s ok to legitimately expect that we should improve upon that record.
So much of courses dependent upon quarterback, play. Virtually all of those games play out different if we had a quarterback that was consistently able to throw accurate passes. And guess what… We will again have that going into next year (as we previously did with Hooker). Specifically, I believe both the UF and bama games play out entirely different had Nico played over Milton. And how knows how winning those games could improved our chances against the other two just based on team optimism etc.
I believe we will be massively improved next year and every opponent on the schedule could be a win. Our championship window could very well be next season but even if that level is still a bit out of reach, I would be incredibly disappointed to not improve upon this season’s record.

 

[OrangeTsar]

For a four loss team, number 17 is actually pretty darn high. Can’t complain IMO

 

[OrangeTsar]

Playoff or bust for 2024 IMO.

With a twelve team playoff, any year we get left out would be considered a failure in my book. A program like Tennessee should be able to finish the regular season in the top 12 fairly regularly IMO

 

[OrangeTsar]

Some of her fans just really shock me. This year we lost to Bama, Florida, UGA, and even throw in Missouri. You are essentially saying it would be a successful year if all that happened again. lol. Not hating on you man… We’re all on the same team, but I think some of us are perpetually suffering from BVS. It’s ok to legitimately expect that we should improve upon that record.
So much of courses dependent upon quarterback, play. Virtually all of those games play out different if we had a quarterback that was consistently able to throw accurate passes. And guess what… We will again have that going into next year (as we previously did with Hooker). Specifically, I believe both the UF and bama games play out entirely different had Nico played over Milton. And how knows how winning those games could improved our chances against the other two just based on team optimism etc.
I believe we will be massively improved next year and every opponent on the schedule could be a win. Our championship window could very well be next season but even if that level is still a bit out of reach, I would be incredibly disappointed to not improve upon this season’s record.

Florida and Missouri I don’t place on the QB. In those two, our OL just plain got whipped. We gotta do better in the trenches next season or even Nico won’t be able to save us in games against physical opponents

 

[VFL-82-JP]

With a twelve team playoff, any year we get left out would be considered a failure in my book. A program like Tennessee should be able to finish the regular season in the top 12 fairly regularly IMO

If a coach the level of Neyland, Fulmer, Majors, or Heupel (we hope) were with us constantly, year after year, decade after decade, I think we could reasonably expect 8-4 floors and 12-0 ceilings every year. And the results would probably fall in some kind of bell curve, with 10-2 as the most frequent outcome, 9-3 or 11-1 less frequent, and the 8-4 and 12-0 results as outliers.

So let's just make up some probabilities that sound reasonable:

8-4 - 15% of the time
9-3 - 20%
10-2 - 30%
11-1 - 20%
12-0 - 15%

That means we would go 9-3 or better 85% of the time with this caliber head coach.

And get this: 9-3 is, about half the time, good enough to make the playoffs.

In the history of the CFP (leaving out the covid '20 season because it was so weird), on average two teams with 3 losses have made the top 12 of the CFP final rankings. Some years, as many as four teams made the top 12 with 3 losses, and once five did. Of course, some years 0 did.

And being in the conference widely perceived as hands-down the best makes it VERY likely that any SEC team with 3 losses will be among those included in the CFP top 12. This year is an example: the Vols are the highest ranking team with 4 losses; that's the "SEC" effect.*

In other words, as long as we go 10-2 or better (65% of the time with a great coach), we'll probably make the playoffs. When we go 9-3, we have a 50/50 chance. All totaled, about 75%.

Conclusion: we can expect to be in the playoffs up to seven or eight times out of every 10 years, as long as Josh is as good as we think he is.

Yah, these coming years are gonna be a huge lot of fun. Can't wait.

Go Vols!



* Strongest argument in favor of those who want the SEC to win every bowl and regular season OOC game they play.

 

[Sea Ray]

With a twelve team playoff, any year we get left out would be considered a failure in my book. A program like Tennessee should be able to finish the regular season in the top 12 fairly regularly IMO

I think you're overrating our program. We've rarely had a stretch of years where we finish the regular season top 12. I'd love for that to change but that's not been our history

 

[VFL-82-JP]

I think you're overrating our program. We've rarely had a stretch of years where we finish the regular season top 12. I'd love for that to change but that's not been our history

If you look only at the years we had a championship-caliber head coach (Neyland, Barnhill, Majors, Fulmer), you actually find it not uncommon to end in the top 12 spots.

--> Between 1938 and 1947 (Neyland-Barnhill years), we were top 12 half the time (5 of 10 seasons).

-->From 1992 to 2001 (Majors-Fulmer years), we were top 12 eight times (8 of 10 seasons).

-->If the AP poll had existed back then, Neyland's first ten years as our head coach would probably have seen us in the Top 12 seven or eight times (seasons went like this in those days: 8-1 ... 8-0-1 ... 9-0-1 ... 9-0-1 ... 9-1 ... and so on).

Just gotta have the right head coach.

Is Josh Heupel the right head coach? Is he championship caliber? I believe he is. But only time will tell.

Gonna be fun.

Go Vols!



EDIT: did the counting. Here's how it turns out:

--> Early Neyland (pre-WW II): 11 of 14 seasons (many of these years were pre-AP poll, so gave him credit for excellent records)
--> Barnhill: 2 of 4 seasons in top 12
--> Later Neyland (post-WW II): 4 of 7 seasons in top 12
--> Majors: after a slow start, 4 of his final 8 seasons were top 12
--> Fulmer: 8 of his 16 seasons were top 12

So...50% of the time, or better in the case of the General.

Will Josh be as good as these coaches? Better than some? Better even than the General? Way too early to tell. We can hope.

Go Vols!

 

[OrangeTsar]

I think you're overrating our program. We've rarely had a stretch of years where we finish the regular season top 12. I'd love for that to change but that's not been our history

I know what you mean in terms of historical precedence. But we have the resources, national footprint, and (IMO) coaching to move into that top tier. There is no reason we shouldn’t routinely finish as at least a nine win team. And with the new SEC alignment, we shouldn’t have to run the gauntlet of Florida (they will be back), Georgia, and Alabama each and every season.

 

[Sea Ray]

If you look only at the years we had a championship-caliber head coach (Neyland, Barnhill, Majors, Fulmer), you actually find it not uncommon to end in the top 12 spots.

--> Between 1938 and 1947 (Neyland-Barnhill years), we were top 12 half the time (5 of 10 seasons).

-->From 1992 to 2001 (Majors-Fulmer years), we were top 12 eight times (8 of 10 seasons).

-->If the AP poll had existed back then, Neyland's first ten years as our head coach would probably have seen us in the Top 12 seven or eight times (seasons went like this in those days: 8-1 ... 8-0-1 ... 9-0-1 ... 9-0-1 ... 9-1 ... and so on).

Just gotta have the right head coach.

Is Josh Heupel the right head coach? Is he championship caliber? I believe he is. But only time will tell.

Gonna be fun.

Go Vols!



EDIT: did the counting. Here's how it turns out:

--> Early Neyland (pre-WW II): 11 of 14 seasons (many of these years were pre-AP poll, so gave him credit for excellent records)
--> Barnhill: 2 of 4 seasons in top 12
--> Later Neyland (post-WW II): 4 of 7 seasons in top 12
--> Majors: after a slow start, 4 of his final 8 seasons were top 12
--> Fulmer: 8 of his 16 seasons were top 12

So...50% of the time, or better in the case of the General.

Will Josh be as good as these coaches? Better than some? Better even than the General? Way too early to tell. We can hope.

Go Vols!

If we make the playoff every other year, I'd be thrilled. We really can't go back to the Neyland days. Let's at least limit this to the color television era. Fulmer is really the only coach that accomplished this. Let's get back to that, for sure!

 

[VFL-82-JP]

If we make the playoff every other year, I'd be thrilled. We really can't go back to the Neyland days. Let's at least limit this to the color television era. Fulmer is really the only coach that accomplished this. Let's get back to that, for sure!

I think every other year is an entirely reasonable hope. Expectation, even, assuming Josh is as good as many of us think he can be.

Go Vols!

 

[Delmar]

And put Iowa at 18……..no one with a brain truly thinks Iowa is better than UT after a 35-0 beat down.

That’s why nobody should ever pay attention to the talking heads at ESPN. Absolute nonsense. I personally didn’t watch a minute of College Gameday the last several years. There is not a person on that set that I can stomach. And then they add that moron Pat McAfee. Unwatchable.

 

[Delmar]

Pretty accurate except I don't know how FLST is in the top 10.

Maybe because of being undefeated in the regular season and ACC champion when they had their whole team? Looked like a top 10 team to me. Don’t even bother mentioning the bowl game. That was nowhere close to the same team.

 

[TennMan101]

It doesn’t matter, but I don’t quite get Ok State moving up 6 spots for beating ATM by 1 score.

It may have something to do with them playing in the Big 12 championship game.

 

[VolsFan4lyfe]

I feel like we should have ended around 23.

 

[chattavol420]

Florida and Missouri I don’t place on the QB. In those two, our OL just plain got whipped. We gotta do better in the trenches next season or even Nico won’t be able to save us in games against physical opponents

But again… We just never know. Part of the reason we got destroyed in those games is because our offense went three and out over and over again. When you’re running, hurry up and go three and now… No defense on earth is going to hold up.

You have to be able to win a slug fast, but you also have to be able to win a shootout in today’s game. We were never going to win a shootout with Milton under Center. If you look at the two blowout losses, we had… Those were going to be shoot out games and we just weren’t explosive this year Offensively which, is 100% on the quarterback. We know what this offense could be when a quarterback can make quick, good decisions and throw accurate passes.