The 2025 Tennessee Football schedule was released on Wednesday night and there’s a lot to break down.
Tennessee’s conference games will look fairly familiar as all eight SEC foes from the 2024 season are on the schedule in 2025 but in the reverse location. For example, with Tennessee hosting Mississippi State in 2024, the Vols will travel to Starkville, Miss., in 2025. Same with all the rest.
Tennessee’s four non-conference opponents include Syracuse in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game (Atlanta, GA) to open the season, ETSU, UAB, and New Mexico State.
While the locations and opponents aren’t too surprising, there are bits of the actual schedule order that are.
The two biggest notes are that Tennessee will host Georgia in the third week of the season and travel to Florida in the penultimate week, two things that have not happened often in recent history. The Vols normally play Florida earlier in the season and take on the Bulldogs later in the year.
Another immediate note is the potential for a late-season trap game. Ole Miss lost its playoff bid in a late November game from Gainesville this past season and Tennessee will have that exact same spot, potentially underneath the lights, next November.
Here’s a look at Tennessee Football’s 2025 schedule with dates and locations. For more takeaways from the 12-game list, see the section below.
Tennessee Football 2025 Schedule
Aug. 30: Tennessee vs Syracuse (Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game) – ATLANTA, GA
Sept. 6: ETSU at Tennessee – KNOXVILLE, TN
Sept. 13: Georgia at Tennessee – KNOXVILLE, TN
Sept. 20: UAB at Tennessee – KNOXVILLE, TN
Sept. 27: Tennessee at Mississippi State – STARKVILLE, MS
Oct. 4: OPEN DATE
Oct. 11: Arkansas at Tennessee – KNOXVILLE, TN
Oct. 18: Tennessee at Alabama (Third Saturday in October) – TUSCALOOSA, AL
Oct. 25: Tennessee at Kentucky – LEXINGTON, KY
Nov. 1: Oklahoma at Tennessee – KNOXVILLE, TN
Nov. 8: OPEN DATE
Nov. 15: New Mexico State at Tennessee – KNOXVILLE, TN
Nov. 22: Tennessee at Florida – GAINESVILLE, FL
Nov. 29: Vanderbilt at Tennessee – KNOXVILLE, TN
More from RTI: ESPN College GameDay Setting Up For Tennessee-Ohio State Playoff Game
Takeaways
- Tennessee will meet Syracuse as both teams paint Atlanta orange to open up the 2025 season. Syracuse went 9-3 this past regular season with a 5-3 record in conference play. The Orange achieved a season-high spot of No. 21 in the CFB Playoff rankings during the 2024 season.
- Georgia’s trip to Knoxville will be the earliest game in series history since it was played on Sept. 9, 1995. The Vols and Bulldogs spent much of the early 90s playing early games in September but primarily moved to October games from 1996 and beyond. Tennessee and Georgia haven’t played in September since the 2018 season (Sept. 29).
- Tennessee’s first SEC road game will be a trip to Starkville for Josh Heupel to see his longtime friend Jeff Lebby and the Bulldogs’ program. Tennessee hasn’t played at Mississippi State since 2012. In fact, Tennessee has only played in Starkville twice in program history with the other appearance back in 1994. Better watch out for those cowbells.
- The Vols return to Knoxville to avenge the Arkansas loss to kick off the October slate. The 2024 and 2025 games against Arkansas both are after an open date.
- Aside from the 2020 COVID season, Tennessee and Florida haven’t played post-October football since Florida hosted Tennessee on Dec. 1, 2001. According to Winsipedia, Tennessee and Florida haven’t squared off in a November matchup since the 1955 season.
- This season showed us just how important end-of-season games will be as teams fight for their playoff and bowl-eligible lives. Florida crushed Ole Miss’s playoff hopes in the second-to-last week of the season from Gainesville. Tennessee will now have that spot in 2025. That’s immediately being circled as a game that the Vols may not be able to lose in order to solidify its playoff spot in the last few weeks. Trap game, possibly?
- Unlike this past season, Tennessee doesn’t necessarily have a gigantic home stretch. It’s a bit more spread out this time.
- Two open dates again
