Some players may say they don't care about rankings or what other people say. Some fans may say, who cares, shut up, play football.
However, coaches and players find motivation in what others think about them. They're human, same as everyone else. Heck, even an NFL general manager pulled receipts on a writer this offseason for his preseason prediction.
Josh Heupel and the Tennessee Volunteers might have just found a little bit of material to post up on their bulletin board, and it comes courtesy of Heupel's peers around the country. The 2024 preseason coaches poll was released on Monday , and the Vols checked in at #15.
While that might not appear insulting on the surface, Tennessee checked in as the seventh SEC team in the rankings, just ahead of #16 Oklahoma. The teams ahead of the Vols in the SEC are Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Ole Miss, Missouri, and LSU. The other SEC schools to round out the top 25 are OU and Texas A&M.
The poll is also a stark reminder of the new mega-conference college football world that we're living in. Between the SEC, B1G, and Notre Dame are 9 of the top 10 teams and 14 of the top 20.
The rankings largely fell in line with how the media voted the teams in the SEC preseason poll, with the Vols also coming in seventh there.
Tennessee will have a chance at a hot start to the 2024 season, with a shot to notch a win over a ranked team in NC State before heading into SEC play. If the Vols can get past Oklahoma on September 28, they could be setting themselves up to prove the rankings very much wrong by the time December comes around.
Related: Tennessee commitment George MacIntyre has the perfect response to latest major Vols recruiting news
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