Despite a 41-20 win over South Carolina on Saturday night in Knoxville, the Tennessee Volunteers (4-1, 1-1 SEC) have fallen one spot in the latest AP Top 25 rankings that were released on Sunday.
Tennessee now sits as the No. 22 team in the country. The Vols are in the middle of a four-team SEC logjam with Kentucky at No. 20, Missouri at No. 21, Tennessee at No. 22, and LSU at No. 23.
The Vols land at No. 18 in the USA Today Coaches Poll after previously being ranked at No. 19. Tennessee lands as the fourth highest-ranked SEC team in the Coaches Poll.
Tennessee has now been ranked in 19 straight AP polls dating back to Week 2 of the 2022 season.
2023 Season
- Preseason/Week 1: No. 12
- Week 2: No. 9
- Week 3: No. 11
- Week 4: No. 23
- Week 5: No. 21
- Week 6: No. 22
Tennessee lands as the sixth highest-ranked team from the SEC out of the seven teams in the rankings. Kentucky ran all over Florida in a victory on Saturday afternoon while Missouri progressed to 5-0 with a win over Vanderbilt on the road. LSU, meanwhile, dropped 10 spots to No. 23 following a last-minute loss to Ole Miss in Oxford on Saturday night.
Tennessee defeated South Carolina on Saturday night behind a balanced offensive attack. The Vols totaled 238 yards on the ground with Jaylen Wright racking up 123 and a touchdown while Joe Milton III threw for 239 yards and one touchdown through the air. On the flip side, Tennessee’s pass rush was relentless on South Carolina quarterback Spencer Rattler and tallied six sacks and several quarterback pressures on the night. While South Carolina wasn’t a ranked team while losing to Tennessee, it is somewhat surprising to see the Vols drop and not just remain at the same spot. Tennessee’s loss to Florida continues to weigh heavy.
More from RTI: Tennessee Football Trolls South Carolina’s ‘Super Bowl’ Comments
SEC Teams in Week 6 AP Poll
- No. 1 Georgia (5-0, 2-0 SEC)
- No. 11 Alabama (4-1, 2-0 SEC)
- No. 16 Ole Miss (4-1, 1-1 SEC)
- No. 20 Kentucky (5-0, 2-0 SEC)
- No. 21 Missouri (5-0, 1-0 SEC)
- No. 22 Tennessee (4-1, 1-1 SEC)
- No. 23 LSU (3-2, 2-1 SEC)
No. 22 Tennessee is off this week and will host Texas A&M (4-1, 2-0 SEC) in Neyland Stadium on Saturday, October 14.
“We’re a football team that needs to get healthy,” Josh Heupel said after Saturday’s game. “I usually get the question, is it coming at the right time? For us right now, I would say it’s coming at the right time. We need to get healthy and get some young guys to grow. We gotta grow as a football team. Good teams continue to get better throughout the course of the season. And we gotta play smarter football and our margins just aren’t big enough to, to not do that. So we’re in control of that. Starts with coaches, starts with me, starts with our assistant coaches and then our players gotta soak it up to.”
21 Responses
This is the second time the Vols have dropped after a win. Seems to me there’s a little media biased for some reason. Teams like Georgia and Alabama continue to get the benefit of the doubt even though they’ve squeaked out victory’s. SMH.
How long are the schedule makers going to schedule a gimme game before the Florida game? I think that plays a big part in all the losses that we’ve had against the gators. it’s too close a match up ever year, to start off slow, because we’re not ready for the increase in player abilities. At least, we played a good Pitt team last year.
Yes, that stinks to heaven! Those “raters” need to be open and honest about their reasons for dropping the Vols, but not dropping teams like GA and Bama.
All that matters is we keep playing hard and winning games! They can’t deny us forever. Go Big Orange!
VFL, but we let the Gator’s get us in the swamp, and that continues to have consequences. We will overcome.
It’s like they that vote and rate have never cared for the Vols no matter what our record is..
I really wanna know why they seem to have something against us esp ESPN but all of college football you herehow much better the sport is when we are good yet even when we was down they called bad shots towards us
Go Vols, don’t worry about the poles just take advantage of the bye week and get healthy and get ready for A&M. Prayers for McCoy, get well soon #15!!
Come on guys ! Thomas Tennessee had the benefit of doubt for 10 or more years. Dooley,Jones, and Pruit continued looking for that benefit. That’s never gonna win us any championships!
We better keep practicing and playing like we last couple of years. We’re not outta the woods by no means. Did you see the whooping KY put on Florida???
We don’t deserve any benefit after the crap show we put on against Florida. Maybe if we can cram down KY throat like they Florida, we ‘ll get some benefit. Till then support our coach and thank God we have him. 2 years is not enough time for anybody to look over the last 20 year stretch we’ve had!
Walk it off Big Orange! Keep Bringing It EVERY saturday!
Alabama needs to be lower in the poll than they currently are, down near where Tennessee currently is…the pollsters are a lot kinder to the RipTide than they are to the Vols, and they have been for a long, long time and I won’t be the first person to tell you “that SUCKS!”
And everyone wonders why we throw hoal post in the river..ect..I too…wonder why we don’t get the benefit of the doubt ,,calls our way at hm ,,other teams do..a d when we played Florida..second hf..we shut them down ..3 3 and outs. Then the refs took over.why aren’t these refs held accountable..
It’s rigged, no way we drop and GA. still at #1 when they just squeaked by. The ranking system is bias.
Wow-ESPN is still on??
GBO let them think what they want and yes it not fair to move use down but with the by week coming up in are boy’s get healthy and get Offense ready for the Tough game’s coming up . Pray 🙏 for #15 to get better. In win the rest of the game’s coming up Go VOLS . VFL
It’s still a young team to. Within the next 3 years coach will be holding that trophy
Milton has been shaky since Austin Peay. I bleed orange, but this is not last year’s team. Best way to rise in the polls is to beat Alabama, Kentucky, and Georgia…handily. go Vols!
Look at who we are talking about here. We are truly the orange-headed stepchild of the SEC. Always will be. These ratings suck almost as much as the officiating has. I try to avoid this kind of story because the rankings are BS. Even though the writing of the story is superb!
Tennessee fans make this conference a ton of money but they have us over a barrel because no other conference can give what the SEC can to its members. Why do you think we keep getting huge, albeit neither southern nor eastern, members? Sorry, but Oklahoma nor Missouri are thought of as the south, no matter how country Mark Twain, aka Samuel Clemens, tries.
It’s the combination of fan bases and teams who are actually good at football. Our conference is so damn biased, they aren’t going to give us anything but what they have to give us. No other conference will stand up and say, “Hey, Tennessee is getting treated like a bitch! That’s not right! Stop that!” That is because of those three letters painted on our field, SEC. Poor little SEC school, yeah… hang on, I gotta catch my bacon floating outside my window…
We dominated our conference and we dominated college football for so long and not that long ago. No one’s giving UT a helping hand.
Sure, sometimes our fans can be difficult. But let’s look at that, now we knew throwing trash at Lane Kiffin was not our finest moment. I must admit the full-sized mustard bottle and golf ball were impressive. But I’ve seen Georgia throw water bottles and junk at us. Ole’ Miss fans threw junk on the basketball court the year before! The rest of the world reacted like we were Cousin Eddie at the storm drain for doing it. Now, we are still hearing about our storming the field and throwing of the goal posts in the river. However, the high brow, sophisticated drunkards at Ole’ Piss threw water bottles on the field before storming it last week. How uncouth! The rest of the planet… crickets. What is being said is the sadistic replay of an clearly inebriated girl run into a security guard who was a bit overzealous and knocked her on her drunk backside. Oh, the humanity. 🙄
This exposes the garbage referee work in the Gainesville game. Georgia simply told the SEC: NEVER AGAIN. We are sick of the trash calls, and obvious biased officiating. It is time for UT to follow suit. SEC IS AT FAULT. CLEAN UP YOUR MESS!
Same thing happened to UGA years ago. ALL OF A SUDDEN. UGA does not play in GAINESVILLE, FL? Can we get a sweet deal like that?
Well, I agree with most all comments I’ve read. Kentucky had a home G with the Gators and the Gators probably thought, it’s just Kentucky. I’m tickled for Kentucky.
We will get better and happy we have a week off. But what I did see this past weekend is, The Dawgs can be gotten to. Auburn exposed some thing’s. But #19 Butler compensated for them.
Vols have to play like their hair is on fire. We have the makings of an on fire finish to the season if we stay healthy and FOCUSED. Everyone is going to get better as the season proceeds. Bama, A&M, all of them will. But we will to. We have to. We got all the tools to do it.
Go BIG ORANGE! Play smart,play tough and know you have all the ingredients for greatness.
If we can beat the Refs. Lol
Well said.