Heading into the 2026 season, Tennessee football wasn’t one of the Southeastern Conference’s most talked-about teams.
The Volunteers’ middle-of-the-road finish in 2025 didn’t turn too many heads their way, and back in August, they were predicted to be the conference’s No. 8-ranked team.
But just because they weren’t making every headline doesn’t make the Volunteers less of a threat for Texas this Saturday in Knoxville, Tennessee. If anything, the fact that a team as solid as Tennessee could slip through the cracks just emphasizes the strength of the SEC at large.
So, since you might not have read about it over the past few months, let me catch you up on what’s been going on at Rocky Top and how Tennessee fits into the competitive, elaborate puzzle that is the SEC.
While the media spotlighted programs like Texas, Georgia, Alabama, LSU and Ole Miss, the Volunteers weren’t sitting around waiting for September to come. Instead, they were likely relishing a break from the spotlight as they worked on hiring a new defensive coordinator, embracing a quarterback battle and readying themselves for a strenuous 2026 schedule.
For a program like Tennessee, an 8–5 finish didn’t indicate a job well done. It was their worst record in the past four years.
The SEC is an extremely difficult conference to win in, and Volunteers head coach Josh Heupel made a concentrated effort throughout the offseason to put his team in a better position.
His first step was hiring former Penn State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles back in December 2025. Knowles has built quite the resume throughout his time coaching college football, and Heupel brought him to Knoxville to revamp a defensive unit that struggled at times in 2025.
Knowles’ move also inspired sophomore edge rusher Chaz Coleman, senior linebacker Amare Campbell, junior safety Dejuan Lane and sophomore defensive tackle Xavier Gilliam to pack their bags from Penn State and join the Volunteers for the 2026 season. The four of them were part of Tennessee’s 21-player incoming transfer portal class. They joined returning weapons like senior linebacker Arion Carter, who withdrew from the NFL Draft to return to Knoxville.
On offense, the Volunteers named freshman Faizon Brandon, a five-star prospect from Greensboro, North Carolina, as their starting quarterback. Facing a No. 1 Texas team during his first SEC start will be no small task for Brandon, but he has established himself as a player Tennessee trusts so far this season.
The Volunteers might not have names as big as Arch Manning or Cam Coleman on their roster, which allowed them to fly under the radar in many ways during this past offseason. But this Tennessee team is far from weak, and in a conference as tough as the SEC, a 0–1 start would be a difficult hole for Texas to crawl out of, even as the current top-ranked team in the nation.
Five of the nation’s top 10 teams in this week’s AP Poll are in the SEC, with 10 of the conference’s 16 programs ranked in the top 25.
Texas’ battle to win the conference could come down to the wire. For obvious reasons, it’s difficult to determine which teams within this conference will start to pull away as the season progresses. However, the conference as a whole feels particularly strong this year.
Many teams have the weaponry to make a run — don’t count out a Tennessee Volunteers team bolstered by new and returning talent.
