The 2024 college football season will be here before you know it.
While the summer still stands between the spring and the start of training camps all around the country, July will present the first big event on the road to the season with SEC Media Days in Dallas, Texas. This will be the first event for the new 16-team SEC before the football season with Texas and Oklahoma being added into the mix.
Right on the heels of Media Days, though, is training camp. The official start of the camp has not been announced at the time of this publication but reason stands to believe that it will happen in early to mid-August, just a few weeks before the start of the season. Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel will lead the Vols into fall camp for the fourth time in his tenure on Rocky Top this August.
Tennessee will play their first game on the schedule on the final day of August. You’d have to go all the way back to the 2019 season to find the last time Tennessee started the season on Aug. 31, though. The Vols began the season in September for four years straight from 2020-2023.
Tennessee will close down September and October with an open date in the final week of each month. The Vols only have one home game in the month of September with a neutral site contest against NC State in Charlotte, NC, and a true road game against Oklahoma in week four.
While the action in Neyland Stadium won’t be too frequent in September, fans would be more than justified to go ahead and start looking ahead to October. After a trip to Arkansas to kick off the month, Tennessee will return home to host Florida and Alabama in back-to-back weeks before the open date closes the month.
Tennessee then stays home for two more SEC home games in Neyland Stadium before a highly-anticipated matchup with Georgia in Athens on Nov. 16.
November is the only month that Tennessee has five games with four in both September and October. The Vols will close the season with two in-state games, a home game against UTEP and the regular-season finale against Vanderbilt in Nashville.
Then comes the SEC Championship in Atlanta, GA, the week after the regular season followed by all the hoopla around the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoffs.
Christmas, Dec. 25, will be sandwiched between the first two rounds of the college football playoffs. The quarterfinals will be split between New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day with three of the four games happening on the latter date. The semifinals at the Orange Bowl and the Cotton Bowl will take place on Jan. 9-10, followed by the National Championship game – once again in Atlanta – on Jan. 20.
A lot of transfer portal and NFL Draft activity will happen after/during the playoffs, but we’ll cross that bridge when it comes. It is only May, after all.
More from RTI: Projecting Tennessee Football’s Depth Chart Following Spring Practice
Here’s a condensed look at the upcoming fall football calendar for the Tennessee Volunteers as they look to build on two straight bowl wins in Nico Iamaleava’s first year as the Vols’ starting quarterback:
July
SEC Media Days (Dallas, TX)
- July 15: Brian Kelly, Lane Kiffin, Shane Beamer, Clark Lea
- July 16: Kirby Smart, Eliah Drinkwitz, Brent Venables, Josh Heupel
- July 17: Kalen DeBoer, Billy Napier, Jeff Lebby, Steve Sarkisian
- July 18: Sam Pittman, Hugh Freeze, Mark Stoops, Mike Elko
August
- TBA: Start of Tennessee Football fall camp
- Aug. 31: Chattanooga at Tennessee (Knoxville)
September
- Sep. 7: Tennessee vs NC State (Charlotte, NC)
- Sep. 14: Kent State at Tennessee (Knoxville)
- Sep. 21: Tennessee at Oklahoma (Norman, OK)
- Sep. 28: OPEN
October
- Oct. 5: Tennessee at Arkansas (Fayetteville, AR)
- Oct. 12: Florida at Tennessee (Knoxville)
- Oct. 19: Alabama at Tennessee (Knoxville)
- Oct. 26: OPEN
November
- Nov. 2: Kentucky at Tennessee (Knoxville)
- Nov. 9: Mississippi State at Tennessee (Knoxville)
- Nov. 16: Tennessee at Georgia (Athens, GA)
- Nov. 23: UTEP at Tennessee (Knoxville)
- Nov. 30: Tennessee at Vanderbilt (Nashville, TN)
December
- Dec. 7: SEC Championship (Atlanta, GA)
- Dec. 20-21: CFP First Round
- Dec. 31: Fiesta Bowl (Quarterfinals)
January
- Jan. 1: Peach Bowl (Quarterfinals)
- Jan. 1: Sugar Bowl (Quarterfinals)
- Jan. 1: Rose Bowl (Quarterfinals)
- Jan. 9: Orange Bowl (Semifinals)
- Jan. 10: Cotton Bowl (Semifinals)
- Jan. 20: National Championship (Atlanta, GA)
