Tennessee football is just under three weeks away from kicking off its 2025 season against Syracuse at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
The nation’s top two preseason polls released the last week with the Associated Press pegging Tennessee as the No. 24 team in the country and the USA Today Coaches Poll slotting Tennessee as the No. 18 team nationally. The SEC’s media predicts Tennessee to finish ninth in the conference.
But what do the experts in the desert think about Tennessee this season? DraftKings Sportsbook set Tennessee football’s regular season over/under win total at 8.5. The over is +125 while the under is set at -145. That means that while the over/under is set at 8.5, DraftKings believes that Tennessee going 8-4 is more likely than 9-3.
It’s been a tumultuous offseason for Tennessee. The Vols lost a number of contributors to the transfer portal in December and then starting quarterback Nico Iamaleava to the transfer portal following spring practice.
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SportsBet.ag had Tennessee football’s over/under win total at 9.5 before Iamaleava entered the portal with most over sportsbooks following suit. Only Texas and Georgia (10.5) had higher over/under win totals than Tennessee while Alabama and LSU each had the same win total as the Vols.
Quarterback is a major question for Tennessee with Iamaleava off to the west coast. The Vols added transfer Joey Aguilar by way of UCLA and Appalachian State. He’s competing with underclassmen quarterbacks Jake Merklinger and George MacIntyre for the starting job this season at Tennessee.
Both Merklinger and MacIntyre have little to no college experience and while Aguilar is a veteran quarterback, he’s never played in Josh Heupel’s system and had mixed results during two seasons in the SunBelt.
Despite reasons for concern at quarterback, Tennessee has a number of reasons for optimism entering the season. The Vols’ defense should be stout again and their run game should be productive as it’s been every season under Heupel.
Tennessee also plays a very manageable schedule with only four matchups against teams in the Preseason AP Top 25.
