Oh, you know, the college football season's right around the corner when the preseason AP poll comes out
And it has. And Tennessee has cracked the top 25. And it continues an impressive streak in the Josh Heupel era
We'll tell you what it is just ahead. Hey, Lucas Panzeke here from 104.5 The Zone and A to Z Sports
Last week, the AP poll came out and Tennessee just barely made the cut
Just one week after being ranked number 18 in the coaches poll
The Vols come in at number 24 in the AP poll. Now, I feel like there always needs to be a disclaimer with these discussions
The AP poll doesn't matter. The AP poll has no effect on the college football playoff
If anything, the AP poll is often misleading when you have teams that are ranked in the preseason top 25
end up having dreadful seasons, and then teams on their schedule get to say that they won over a ranked opponent
because they were ranked in the preseason. There are plenty of flaws to it, but fans love to see that little number next to their team going into week one
Now, let me first say that this is a completely reasonable ranking for Tennessee to be at number 24
I know the Vols are coming off a college football playoff appearance, but if Vols fans are thinking that Tennessee should be assumed to be a top 10 team
and back in the playoff discussion just because they were in it last year, I'm sorry, but that's a bit delusional
This is a Tennessee team that brings back less than 40% of its offensive production that obviously
lost its starting quarterback And whatever you think of Nico Iamaliava Tennessee is less talented at the quarterback position because he is gone so i have no problem with the vols being expected to take a
step back in 2025 but it does show you the floor that josh heupel has established with this program
that the expectation despite losing nico is not that tennessee will completely fall out of relevance
in fact being in the ap poll this week continues a streak that tennessee when they go to play
Syracuse and Atlanta in week one. That will be the 39th consecutive game in which Tennessee
football is ranked inside of the AP top 25. The last time the Vols were an unranked football team
was all the way back in week one of the 2022 season. That opener against Ball State
they cracked the top 25 after that. A historic 2022 season followed. Vols haven't fallen out of
the AP top 25 since. No such streak has happened for Tennessee football since the late 90s. Another
thing that goes to show you the level that Josh Heupel has raised this program to
Now they're going to have to earn their way across the board this season to stay into
the top 25 and obviously try and work their way from the outside looking into the college
football playoff discussion. But Tennessee, while playoff or bust isn't exactly the theme of the season, is at least
showing where it's at right now as a program in a way that it can gear up for 2026 and
beyond when you have a five-star quarterback coming down the pipe. We'll see what the Vols do this year
Maybe they'll knock some people off, make some upsets that people don't expect
but they continue that streak of being inside the top 25, now going on 39 straight games