College Football: Surprises and Snubs from the Coaches Poll

Surprise: Tennessee in the top 25

The Tennessee Volunteers get hyped up every single offseason. It’s just a face of life for college football fans. Meeting that hype has been a problem for the Vols of late. Even with teams ranked inside the top 15 over the last two years, they still finished with only nine wins both times. Head coach Butch Jones needs a double-digit win season to likely keep his job through the entire year. He’s on a hotter seat than almost any other coach in the country.

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Another reason why Tennessee is a surprise to be ranked at No. 24 is the loss of quarterback Joshua Dobbs who won a lot of games for the Vols over the last three seasons. Losing Dobbs means that Tennessee needs to find an entirely new face of the program. The candidates to replace him are freshman Jarrett Guarantano and junior Quinten Dormady, both of which have very limited experience.

Not to say that the Vols can’t compete and be a very good team in 2017, but the odds are against them. There are six SEC teams in the top 25, and Tennessee has to face four of them this year. Until they prove it on the field, it’s going to be hard to trust the Vols being worthy of preseason expectations.