The rankings are based upon how successful the author thinks head coaches will be relative to the team's previous season, so Vandy beating ETSU/UConn and being competitive in one SEC game would be a pretty decent step up.
It's just somewhat worrisome that this author thinks that Tennessee will be worse this year than a season in which they notched a six-game SEC losing streak and only looked truly solid against Vanderbilt and Missouri. The only rankings with which I don't particularly agree (UCF would have had a better season in '21 than '20 if Heupel had stayed, so that one is misleading) are Andy Avalos (weird, but not terrible, season for Boise last year) and Steve Sarkisian (all things considered, 2020 wasn't a terrible season).