Pre season ranking for 2026

#6
#6
He has to beat Vandy and win a bowl game first. That will determine how high UT will be ranked preseason.
 
#8
#8
Vol8188 said:
If everyone on offense stays along with Hood and Gibson, maybe top 5
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Kitselman and Thomas are out of eligibility, Brazzell is R-Jr, but will go pro. The only other possibility is Heard probably going pro also. That's a lot of talent coming back on offense. Have a lot of young players that have played on defense. As long as they don't lose to many to the portal they are in great shape for next year.
 
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#11
#11
ddubb76 said:
If Everyone that can come back and ja gets another year, where do you think we would be ranked next preseason?
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If everyone who has not exhausted their eligibility was to return and JA is awarded another year and returns, the only losses on Offense would be Star Thomas and Miles Kitselman. On defense, we would lose Dominic Bailey, Bryson Eason, Joshua Josephs, Jaxson Moi, Tyre West, Jalen McMurrey and Andre Turrentine from the two deep. That assumes nobody but Boo Carter portals out and nobody declares early for the draft, which is highly unlikely. However, in that case, this is what we would look like outside of portal additions:
QB: Aguilar/Merk/GMac/Faizon
RB: Bishop/Lewis/Morris/Baker
WR: Brazzell/Smith/Keys/J Wyatt
WR: Staley/Jackson/King
WR: Matthews/Dodson/Moa
TE: Davis/Van Dorselaer/Brame
OL: Moe/Anderson/G Osenda
OL: Heard/J Heard/K Blair
OL: Sanders/Warren/Ginther
OL: Perry/Sham/Ogumoro
C: Pendleton/Satterwhite

DE: Weathersby/Dye
Leo: Herring/Ross/Z Groves
DT: Robinson/Campbell
DT: Hobbs/Utley/D Albert
LB: A. Carter/Perlotte/Harmon/B Rouse
LB: Telander/Herring/Spillman/Burns/TJ White
Star: C Hood/Poteat
CB: J McCoy/Redmond/Z Anderson
CB: R Gibson/Merritt
S: Farooq/Walton/Lewis
S: Beasley/J Thomas?

To me, that would easily be a top 10, if not top 5 preseason if we could fill a couple holes through the portal.
 
#13
#13
deatojl said:
If everyone who has not exhausted their eligibility was to return and JA is awarded another year and returns, the only losses on Offense would be Star Thomas and Miles Kitselman. On defense, we would lose Dominic Bailey, Bryson Eason, Joshua Josephs, Jaxson Moi, Tyre West, Jalen McMurrey and Andre Turrentine from the two deep. That assumes nobody but Boo Carter portals out and nobody declares early for the draft, which is highly unlikely. However, in that case, this is what we would look like outside of portal additions:
QB: Aguilar/Merk/GMac/Faizon
RB: Bishop/Lewis/Morris/Baker
WR: Brazzell/Smith/Keys/J Wyatt
WR: Staley/Jackson/King
WR: Matthews/Dodson/Moa
TE: Davis/Van Dorselaer/Brame
OL: Moe/Anderson/G Osenda
OL: Heard/J Heard/K Blair
OL: Sanders/Warren/Ginther
OL: Perry/Sham/Ogumoro
C: Pendleton/Satterwhite

DE: Weathersby/Dye
Leo: Herring/Ross/Z Groves
DT: Robinson/Campbell
DT: Hobbs/Utley/D Albert
LB: A. Carter/Perlotte/Harmon/B Rouse
LB: Telander/Herring/Spillman/Burns/TJ White
Star: C Hood/Poteat
CB: J McCoy/Redmond/Z Anderson
CB: R Gibson/Merritt
S: Farooq/Walton/Lewis
S: Beasley/J Thomas?

To me, that would easily be a top 10, if not top 5 preseason if we could fill a couple holes through the portal.
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Brazzell, McCoy and Hood are gone. Heard is possibly gone.Will need DT, SDE, CB, and S from portal if all these go early. I don't think we lose many on D. How many will hit the portal on offense is the question. Need more depth in the D backfield for sure.
 
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#14
#14
farmdogvol said:
Brazzell, McCoy and Hood are gone. Heard is possibly gone.Will need DT, SDE, CB, and S from portal if all these go early. I don't think we lose many on D. How many will hit the portal on offense is the question. Need more depth in the D backfield for sure.
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I agree that they will likely be gone. I was simply playing out the scenario the Op laid out with everybody returning plus JA.
 
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#15
#15
farmdogvol said:
Kitselman and Thomas are out of eligibility, Brazzell is R-Jr, but will go pro. The only other possibility is Heard probably going pro also. That's a lot of talent coming back on offense. Have a lot of young players that have played on defense. As long as they don't lose to many to the portal they are in great shape for next year.
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I mean everyone who has eligibility. Not everyone in general.
 
#17
#17
Hacksaw said:
All I know is I really wish we hadn't missed that FG against UGA.
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I've always thought we gave away the UGA game and outplayed the Sooners but made mistakes. The Bama game was an out and out loss. Probably should have lost the Mississippi State game. So in a perfect world we would have been 10-2 with a playoff berth. But what the heck just beat Vandy and we will have a respectable year. And throw in a bowl victory over Michigan!
 
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#19
#19
deatojl said:
If everyone who has not exhausted their eligibility was to return and JA is awarded another year and returns, the only losses on Offense would be Star Thomas and Miles Kitselman. On defense, we would lose Dominic Bailey, Bryson Eason, Joshua Josephs, Jaxson Moi, Tyre West, Jalen McMurrey and Andre Turrentine from the two deep. That assumes nobody but Boo Carter portals out and nobody declares early for the draft, which is highly unlikely. However, in that case, this is what we would look like outside of portal additions:
QB: Aguilar/Merk/GMac/Faizon
RB: Bishop/Lewis/Morris/Baker
WR: Brazzell/Smith/Keys/J Wyatt
WR: Staley/Jackson/King
WR: Matthews/Dodson/Moa
TE: Davis/Van Dorselaer/Brame
OL: Moe/Anderson/G Osenda
OL: Heard/J Heard/K Blair
OL: Sanders/Warren/Ginther
OL: Perry/Sham/Ogumoro
C: Pendleton/Satterwhite

DE: Weathersby/Dye
Leo: Herring/Ross/Z Groves
DT: Robinson/Campbell
DT: Hobbs/Utley/D Albert
LB: A. Carter/Perlotte/Harmon/B Rouse
LB: Telander/Herring/Spillman/Burns/TJ White
Star: C Hood/Poteat
CB: J McCoy/Redmond/Z Anderson
CB: R Gibson/Merritt
S: Farooq/Walton/Lewis
S: Beasley/J Thomas?

To me, that would easily be a top 10, if not top 5 preseason if we could fill a couple holes through the portal.
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If we win out I’d say we end at 10ish. Ain’t no way we’re getting a 5 spot bump just for returning players.
 
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#21
#21
I believe if we beat candy, take the bowl, we end up @ 10-12, pre season 2026 I think we are placed about the same. looking at our 2026 schedule I really can’t see where it’s tougher than this season as many have said, one team just replaces another really. Next year everything depends on if Joey comes back and how the portal is used to fill our needs. We could go 11-1 or 8-5
 
#23
#23
EastTNVol6240 said:
If we win out I’d say we end at 10ish. Ain’t no way we’re getting a 5 spot bump just for returning players.
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I'm saying that if every single player with remaining eligibility returned, we would. That would include McCoy, Gibson and Hood in the secondary, Joey returning at QB, Brazzell returning along with all the other WRs, the entire OL, all but Kitselman in the TE room and all but Start Thomas in the RB room, plus the majority of our DL two deep. It won't happen that way, but if it did, we would absolutely be top 5 preseason, particularly if we beefed up the interior DL and safety rooms through the portal. You must not have noticed where teams like LSU and Clemson were ranked in the preseason this year if you don't think a 5 spot bump is possible.
 
#24
#24
deatojl said:
I'm saying that if every single player with remaining eligibility returned, we would. That would include McCoy, Gibson and Hood in the secondary, Joey returning at QB, Brazzell returning along with all the other WRs, the entire OL, all but Kitselman in the TE room and all but Start Thomas in the RB room, plus the majority of our DL two deep. It won't happen that way, but if it did, we would absolutely be top 5 preseason, particularly if we beefed up the interior DL and safety rooms through the portal. You must not have noticed where teams like LSU and Clemson were ranked in the preseason this year if you don't think a 5 spot bump is possible.
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In case you haven’t noticed we aren’t the media darlings some teams are. As you said we won’t get the chance to find out, but imo I don’t think we’d get the bump with all of them returning. They dropped our preseason number drastically bc of the ? At QB. I understand that’s an important position, but there were plenty of teams with QBs not returning that didn’t get penalized as we did.

I’m not big into the tin hat “out to get us” conspiracies but we don’t usually end up on the favorable side of these things.
 
#25
#25
They thought Nico would be a hard loss for us to overcome. They were way wrong.

Assuming JA is back we're an easy top 10 team. Who's really going to be up there to start out? Ohio State Alabama Georgia Oregon and Texas a&m are probably the top 5 in some order. We are squarely in the next group of 5. Even if it is 10th. That's a good enough jumping off point.
 
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