Tennessee Football should be a top 25 team

Tennessee football has debuted in the 2020 S&P+ rankings at 19, and that proves the Vols should be ranked in the top 25 to start the season.

I think it’s clear we can all say that Tennessee football’s start to the 2019 season was nothing short of awful. For the second half of the season, though, the Vols went on a tear and were one of the best teams in the SEC.

Seven wins in its final eight games, including a bowl win, isn’t too shabby to finish a season where the Vols looked like a completely different team during the first half of the season.

Well, the strong finish to the season is being recognized in 2020’s first S&P+ ranking. This should come as no surprise as the finish to the season was one of the best one could imagine.

The S&P+ system is designed to break down analytics and statistics from a team’s previous performances and can be used to predict what a team might due in the future. In this case, it has predicted that the Tennessee Volunteers will be a top 20 team.

I don’t blame the S&P+ rankings for putting the Vols at 19. Towards the end of the season, the Vols were fairly efficient and performed very highly on defense as it looked like Jeremy Pruitt‘s defensive system finally found a way to be successful.

Tennessee’s defense is what helped get the Vols to 19th in the rankings. The defense was ranked seventh-best in the nation, one spot ahead of Alabama’s defense and six spots ahead of Clemson’s.

The offense did take a hit as it was ranked at 56, but throughout the 2019 season, we didn’t see Tennessee’s offense consistently find its footing. The offense was definitely the eyesore compared to the Vols’ defense and special teams.

I think this ranking is going to be a hint as to what the Vols will do in 2020, and possibly where the Vols could be ranked going into Week 1.

I think the Tennessee Volunteers are a top-25 team, and I think they should start the season ranked and see where they go from there. I have a good feeling it will be up.