Tennessee Discovers Three Annual Conference Opponents - What it Means for Vols

What Tennessee's three annual conference opponents mean for the Tennessee Volunteers.

Tennessee coach Josh Heupel high-fives a player before a college football game between Tennessee and UAB at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tenn., on Sept. 20, 2025. | Caitie McMekin/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

What Tennessee's three annual conference opponents mean for the Tennessee Volunteers.

On Monday, it was announced by ON3's Chris Low that Tennessee's three annual opponents for the nine game conference schedule will be Alabama, Kentucky and Vanderbilt. So what does this mean for the Volunteers?

For starters, it means Tennessee will have to say goodbye to some prominent rivalries being on their schedule annually. The Volunteers have played both Georgia and Florida for a long time now and both have become significant rivals. They will now only see those two teams every other year as each conference team will play every team in the conference every two years.

There were several ideas floated around for Tennessee's annual opponents. It seemed like the Volunteers were either going to get Kentucky or Florida on top of Vanderbilt and Alabama. All things considered, the Volunteers are likely happy that they got the three opponents that they did compared to what some of the other conference teams received.

It's also worth noting that the annual opponents for each team will be reviewed every four years. In other words, if the SEC feels as if the annual opponents are not balanced enough, the conference will change the permanent opponents.

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