Tennessee Volunteers

Tennessee Football: Four Reasons the Vols' Drop in the Rankings is Extremely Unfair

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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Sep 10, 2016; Bristol, TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers head coach Butch Jones and Tennessee Volunteers quarterback Joshua Dobbs (11) are interviewed after the game against the Virginia Tech Hokies at Bristol Motor Speedway. Tennessee won 45 to 24. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports

Tennessee football is No. 15 in both polls despite a preseason Top 10 ranking and a 2-0 start. Here are four reasons that’s very unfair to the Volunteers.

You can make the argument that Tennessee football did not deserve to be in the preseason Top 10 to begin with. You can also make the argument that the Vols deserved to be ranked higher.

But given their preseason Top 10 ranking in the AP and Coaches’ Polls, voters have been wildly inconsistent to knock them down to No. 15 in both polls by Week Two.

Seriously, how do you start 2-0 and drop five spots from your preseason ranking? By this logic, the Vols could fall out of the Top 25 is they get to 8-0.

It’s ridiculous.

Yes, there are lots of concerns about this football team. The 20-13 overtime victory in the opener over the Appalachian State Mountaineers was ugly. The 14-0 first-quarter deficit against the Virginia Tech Hokies was even uglier.

But they are still 2-0 and coming off of a 45-24 dominant victory.

Still, voters have dropped them in the polls due to how ugly they have looked at times this year. Looking ugly in front of a primetime audience on Thursday night and then Saturday night the next week simply magnified their problems.

And on top of that, the Vols have been irrelevant for so long that nobody has faith in this team entering Butch Jones’s fourth year.

Still, these are very unfair reasons to drop Tennessee football in the rankings if you pay attention to the landscape of college football. Here are four reasons why that’s the case.

Sep 10, 2016; Clemson, SC, USA; Clemson Tigers quarterback Deshaun Watson (4) looks to pass the ball during the second quarter against the Troy Trojans at Clemson Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Joshua S. Kelly-USA TODAY Sports

1. Other Top 10 teams have looked just as ugly or uglier than Tennessee.

Okay, so the Alabama Crimson Tide, Michigan Wolverines, Florida State Seminoles, Houston Cougars, Wisconsin Badgers and Ohio State Buckeyes all make sense being ahead of Tennessee football.

They each have quality wins or, in Ohio State’s case, have blown out opponents and have a better recent history. But what about the Clemson Tigers?

Just like Tennessee, the Tigers have played two unranked teams, one a bottom-tier Group of Five team and another an unranked Power Five team.

Unlike Tennessee, Clemson has looked ugly in both games.

Struggling to put away the Auburn Tigers at Jordan-Hare Stadium is forgivable. That’s a very talented team with a genius coach. But they only beat the Troy Trojans by six points. How is that any better than the Vols needing overtime to put away the Appalachian State Mountaineers, a team that’s actually better than Troy?

Meanwhile, the Vols are behind the Georgia Bulldogs in one poll. Didn’t they just squeak by Nicholls State, an FCS school? How is that any worse than what Tennessee did in the opener?

Oh, and Michigan State only beat Furman 28-13. Is that any better than what Tennessee has done so far?

Somehow, only the Vols get significantly punished for playing ugly early. And that’s grossly unfair considering that other teams have looked just as ugly.

On top of that, Tennessee may have had a reason for looking ugly in those games…the competition. That brings us to our next point.

Sep 10, 2016; Bristol, TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers running back Jalen Hurd (1) runs for a short gain while being tackled by Virginia Tech Hokies defensive back Terrell Edmunds (22) during the first half at Bristol Motor Speedway. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports

2. Tennessee’s schedule has been tougher than people realize.

On the surface, things appeared to be easy for Tennessee football. They open the year at home against a Sun Belt team and then get to play in the largest college football game ever against an unranked team with a new coach that went 7-6 last year.

Oh, and that largest game ever was at the Bristol Motor Speedway where about 65 percent of the 150,000-plus fans there were Vols fans. So it was basically two home hames.

Fine.

Lost in the analysis, though, is just how tough these two teams were as match-ups against the Vols.

The Appalachian State Mountaineers went 11-2 last year and are the favorites to win the Sun Belt conference this year. They are very good under Scott Satterfield, and with all of their key players back on offense, they figured to give the Vols trouble. It only got trickier when Jalen Reeves-Maybin, the quarterback of Tennessee’s defense, was ejected early.

Meanwhile, they returned six members of an elite front seven on defense that had a Top 20 pass rush last year, while the Vols had to break in a freshman left tackle at offensive line due to injuries.

All of this made for the perfect storm to give the Vols trouble. They still pulled out an ugly victory.

Then came the Battle at Bristol. The Vols faced a Hokies team that still kept its defensive coordinator and returned nine starters on that side of the ball. On top of that, Fuente is an offensive genius and brought in Jerod Evans, a junior college transfer, at quarterback to run his system.

It was again the perfect storm to make this team much better than people expect them to be.

Sure, Virginia Tech had many unforced turnovers. It’s also true that the Vols’ defense shut them down after the first quarter.

Both of these teams are very good, and Tennessee football has played a much tougher schedule than most Top 10 teams to this point. But that last game brings us to our next reason.

Sep 10, 2016; Bristol, TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers quarterback Joshua Dobbs (11) drops back to pass the ball against the Virginia Tech Hokies during the second half at Bristol Motor Speedway. Tennessee won 45 to 24. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports

3. Tennessee football just blew out a Power Five team at a neutral field.

Okay, so it was a neutral field where most fans were for Tennessee. But it’s not like the Vols didn’t just win a dominating game over a solid team. They should have moved up a lot after that performance.

We have already documented how deceivingly good Virginia Tech is going to be. Let’s take that part out of it, though.

Just assume the Hokies are going to be what they have been over the past couple of years. Isn’t blowing them out still impressive by any stretch? Isn’t it even more impressive when your team fell behind 14-0 in the first quarter.

If the rankings are all about leaving a lasting impression, the Vols should be in much better position than they are in right now.

They beat an ACC team likely to go to a bowl game by three touchdowns, and it would have been by more had they not decided to call off the dogs in the fourth quarter. Why should Butch Jones and Co. apologize for that at all?

If this were anybody else, fans would consider this a solid win. But because of the lack of faith in the Vols, people are overreacting to any reason they might be trailing in a game.

It’s too much, and people are being too unfair. By the way, trailing in both games is another point in favor of the argument that Tennessee is being treated unfairly. Let’s move on to that.

Sep 1, 2016; Knoxville, TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers running back Jalen Hurd (1) interacts with fans after the overtime win against the Appalachian State Mountaineers at Neyland Stadium. Tennessee won 20-13. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports

4. Tennessee football players are showing serious mental toughness.

The biggest knock against the Vols last year was that they could not close out games. Despite the fact that they had two close wins, fans could only remember the four close losses, including the two late-game collapses against the Oklahoma Sooners and Florida Gators.

Analysts made the point this year that their only reservation of the Vols was whether or not they could win those close games.

Well, if that’s been your one fear, you should shoot the Vols up the polls at this point. After all, while three of their four losses last year came in games which they led by 13 points or more, their first two wins this year came in games which they were down by two scores.

The Vols trailed the Appalachian State Mountaineers by 10 points in the fourth quarter and won the game in overtime thanks to the defense making key fourth quarter plays. That’s something they didn’t do last year.

Then they fell behind 14-0 to the Virginia Tech Hokies in the first quarter, and rather than panic, they broke it open in the second quarter.

The mental toughness of the players should alleviate one question people have about this team. After all, the Vols have won two of their past three games that have come within one score, and they are ranked No. 3 in the country in terms of the length of college football winning streaks. They’ve won eight straight.

It seems as if they clearly turned the corner after a loss to the Arkansas Razorbacks last year. However, the media still doesn’t want to take notice. So the pressure is on them to continue to prove it on the field.

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