In today’s era of college football, the margin for error is wider than ever. In the past, you essentially needed an undefeated season to claim a national title. Now, SEC teams can lose at least two and maybe even three games and still make the playoffs and have a shot to win a national title. This was the case for Tennessee football a year ago, when it lost a pair in the regular season to punch its ticket to the 12-team postseason.
In that 2024 season, the eventual SEC champion, Georgia, suffered an early-year blow that it had to recover from. The Bulldogs dropped their fourth game of the year to Alabama. Later in the year, UGA also lost to Ole Miss. Despite the pair of losses, it still finished in the top two of the SEC standings to earn a trip to Atlanta, where it defeated Texas in the conference championship.
For Tennessee in 2025, it’s in a similar spot. Vols tight end Miles Kitselman noted the similarities after, ironically, UT lost to Georgia this past Saturday. Both fell early in their SEC slates, but all the goals that any top team would want to achieve are still well within reach.
“I don’t know if I want to use them as an example, last year’s SEC champs lost week (five) to a team and turned around and won the SEC and went to the playoffs,” Kitselman said. “We’re in that exact same boat right now. We can either dwell on this and mope in it, be sad, or we can learn from it and continue to go strive for our goals. Everything is still out there in front of us. Watch the film, learn from it, feel sorry for yourself for a very short amount of time, but we got a game that we got to play on Saturday and we still have all of our goals out in front of us.”
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Really, there is reason to be even more optimistic about what the Vols have in 2025 after the first loss. Through three games, including one against what should be a premier defense, the offense is humming. UT has done a complete turnaround on that side of the ball, going from a unit that struggled to put up any points in the first half to one that is jumping on teams in a hurry.
If the defense can get some pieces back from injury and tighten up just a bit, it’d look like a complete team that will be extremely tough for anyone to beat. Looking ahead at the SEC schedule, all the games are seemingly winnable, as well. The Vols’ toughest opponent may be Oklahoma, but UT gets the Sooners at home. Tough road games are against Alabama and Florida, but both have already shown to be vulnerable.
Tennessee can drop one more game and still feel reasonably confident that a spot in the playoffs will have its name on it. With the blueprint already set by Georgia a year ago to claim a conference title after an early-season misstep, you can see why the team is able to look on the bright side while still letting the loss sting.
