The SEC announced its conference schedules for the 2024 season Wednesday night as Texas and Oklahoma ready to join the conference.
College football’s top conference is staying with an eight game conference schedule at least for the 2024 season, but since that ruling isn’t permanent this schedule was a true run off. Greg Sankey and the SEC did a good job protecting rivalries in this one year schedule and that stayed true for Tennessee.
The Vols will play their former SEC East rivals Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and Vanderbilt during the 2024 season as well as Alabama. Mississippi State, Arkansas and Oklahoma round out Tennessee’s schedule.
The 2024 season is still over a year away so it is hard to project and this could end up looking very foolish, but let’s rank Tennessee’s 2024 conference schedule from least to most difficult.
More From RTI: Joe Milton III Set For Manning Passing Academy
8. at Vanderbilt
Clark Lea’s Vanderbilt program showed life in his second season in Nashville, earning conference wins over Florida and Kentucky. Still, Tennessee beat them 56-0 on the road a season ago and could have done it without attempting a path.
Vanderbilt still has a long way to go to be any semblance of a threat to Tennessee. Maybe they’ll have done so by 2024 but I’m going to have to see it to believe it.
7. vs. Mississippi State
This is an interesting case here as we haven’t seen Mississippi State play a single game under new head coach Zach Arnett. And it’s hard to know what to expect. Arnett is a first time head coach and was Mike Leach’s defensive coordinator.
Leach’s offense partnered with Arnett’s improved defense is why Mississippi State has been a middle of the road SEC team over the last few years. With the Bulldogs no longer running the Air Raid, will it stay that way?
There’s tons of questions around Mississippi State right now but the Vols should be plenty more talented and will be at home. This is one Josh Heupel’s fourth team should take care of.
6. vs. Kentucky
While we don’t know what to expect with Mississippi State, we largely know what to expect from Kentucky due to the consistency of that program under Mark Stoops.
The Wildcats are a solid program. They’ve also beaten Tennessee twice in Stoops’ 10 seasons as head coach and will have to replace their starting quarterback ahead of the 2024 season.
Playing Kentucky won’t be easy, but it is a game Tennessee should take care of as it has for the vast majority of the Stoops era. For reference: the two Tennessee teams Stoops beat combined to win seven games (2017 and 20).
5. at Arkansas
Sam Pittman has done wonders to turn Arkansas into a middle of the pack SEC program from the conference bottom feeder it was when he arrived in Fayetteville. 2024 is poised to be a transition year for Arkansas. They’ll break in a new quarterback after K.J. Jefferson runs out of eligibility this season.
The Razorbacks have worked into the middle of the SEC but their recruiting and transfer portal success doesn’t indicate they’re knocking on the door of the top programs in the SEC.
This game being on the road is why it’s higher on the list than Kentucky and Mississippi State, but feels like a game Tennessee will be favored in.
4. vs. Florida
Maybe I’m giving Florida too much credit. Billy Napier’s first season was a disappointment at best and a disaster at worst but they’re still Florida and Napier is recruiting pretty well early in his tenure.
Quarterback is the big question for Florida this season and could very well be again in 2024 but Florida’s defense should be upgraded by then.
I could be giving Tennessee’s relative lack of success against Florida too much weight here but even then, this is a rivalry game and probably will be early in the season. It’ll carry a lot of weight.
3. at Oklahoma
Speaking of coaches who had poor first seasons, here’s Brent Venables and Oklahoma. The Sooners have a brutal 2024 schedule as they break into the SEC and need to get their footing under them in their final season in the Big 12 before making the move.
While Florida has recruited relatively well, Oklahoma has recruited extremely well early in Venables’ tenure. The Sooners will improve their defensive talent and I think Venables will improve the defense as a whole.
Tennessee going into a rowdy Norman for on of Oklahoma’s first big time SEC games will be a challenging environment.
2. vs. Alabama
What more is there to say other than it’s Nick Saban and Alabama? The Crimson Tide will be somewhere between really good and elite.
The game being inside of Neyland Stadium is the big advantage and reason it’s second on this list and not first.
1. at Georgia
What more is there to say other than Georgia is the back-to-back National Champion? There’s a great chance the Bulldogs will defend their title a third year and an even better chance Georgia will be riding a regular season winning streak in the 40s when Tennessee rolls into Sanford Stadium.
Georgia is the premier program in the country right now. Tennessee will have to face them on the road in 2024.
