After making the College Football Playoff for the first time in 2024, Tennessee will be aiming this upcoming season to return to the 12-team bracket and this time advance in it after a humbling first-round loss to Ohio State last season. The Vols will go into the 2025 season, their fifth under head coach Josh Heupel, with plenty of question marks on both sides of the football, but expectations internally remain very high in a program that’s won 30 games over the past three seasons. Expectations are high externally, too, at least in terms of ESPN’s Football Power Index, whose preseason projections give Tennessee a strong chance of returning to the CFP this fall.
The preseason data for the objective model was recently released and revealed some interesting figures for the Vols, from their projected win total and chances of winning the SEC title and making the Playoff to Tennessee’s strength of schedule and opponent rankings.
What is the FPI? ESPN explains it as “a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of a team’s performance going forward for the rest of the season.” It measures how many points above or below average a team is, and its projections are based on 20,000 simulations of the season using its power ratings, results to date (not applicable in the preseason) and the remaining schedule.
Tennessee’s projected win total in the FPI is 8.7 games. The FPI gives the Vols a 38.5% chance of making the CFP, a 4.2% chance of winning the SEC title and a 2.3% chance of winning the national championship. The Vols are set to play the 15th-toughest schedule in the country per the FPI, but actually face the third-easiest SOS (behind only Ole Miss and Missouri) among SEC teams.
Here’s a rundown of several other key FPI projections and what they say about Tennessee’s chances in 2025.
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