Just In: Tennessee Surges into Top 15 in New AP Poll

The Vols are among the top teams in the country to start the 2020 season.

Tennessee is looking to make major improvements in Jeremy Pruitt’s third season in Knoxville; however, the unprecedented challenges created by the Coronavirus Pandemic have made the Vols’ aspirations difficult to achieve. Despite the unusual start to the season, the Vols received good news on Sunday afternoon when the voters of the AP Top 25 Poll rated Tennessee as the No. 15 team in the country.

In addition to earning the No. 15 spot in the country, the AP Poll also awarded Tennessee with the No. 7 spot in the SEC. The only SEC team ahead of the Volunteers were Alabama (2), Georgia (4), Florida (5), LSU (6), Auburn (8), and Texas A&M (10). Of the 6 SEC teams ahead of the Vols, Tennessee will be forced to play 5 of them.

The AP Poll also provided the Volunteers with their highest ranking since the 2016 season — when the team started their season off at No. 9. However, it is worth noting that Tennessee’s high rating is in part due to the Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences cancelling their season — which made them ineligible for the poll.

The SEC is also the only major conference planning on having the season this fall which has not yet begun their season. Meaning that the ranking for Tennessee — along with all other SEC teams — is much more of a prediction that an assessment of their performance. The SEC is currently set to start their season two weekends from now on September 26th.

The 15th ranked Vols’ season-opener will come against South Carolina — who is unranked — in Williams-Brice Stadium. They will then travel back to Knoxville for their first home game against the unranked Missouri Tigers before they will be able to play their first ranked match-up against No. 4 Georgia in Athens.

The next AP Top 25 Poll will be released one week from today on September 20th at 2:00ET. While the Vols will still have not played their season-opener against South Carolina by then, it will be interesting to see how they shift in the poll as other teams progress in their season.