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2023 Tennessee Volunteers football team
The 2023 Tennessee Volunteers Volunteers football team during the 2023 CFB Season. The team was lead by head coach tsweezy.
Summary
The basics: national pundits saw the 2022 playoff semifinal appearance and predicted more of the same with Tennessee at number 3 in the preseason AP poll. Southeastern media members and program internal sources were a little more bearish with most predicting a 9-10 win regular season. There were a lot of questions about the leaky looking OL and lack of any good RBs with Ynoa off making noise in Minnesota. With the defense looking porous as well, everyone thought it would be a fun season full of shoot-outs and big numbers. By roster rankings, Tennessee had shot up from the 45th most talented team to 14th as tsweezy got in his 2nd crooting class. While that seems high, the initial schedule looked rough against 3 top-5 talent teams. Reigning national champion Alabama and preseason top-5 Kentucky and FSU (to say nothing of UGA) made for a daunting path. Luckily though, none of those teams were quite as good as initially expected.
TL;DR Season Recap: Brandon Savage was even better than advertised. Even without a functional running game the man led Tennessee to a 12-0 regular season and a Heisman trophy. The defense was actually quite stout as well, looking like a top-15 unit despite on paper talent suggesting otherwise. Unfortunately their achilles heel was the air raid as Auburn took advantage to beat them in the SEC CCG. Tennessee did re-group and beat Marshall to make the playoff semifinals for the second straight year, where they ultimately fell in a shockingly lopsided game to TCU.
Schedule
| Week | Opponent | Result | Game Link | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Maryland | W 45-7 | Game | 3 |
| 2 | at (2) Florida State | W 40-21 | Game | 1 |
| 3 | Southern Miss | W 33-3 | Game | 1 |
| 4 | at Florida | W 45-21 | Game | 1 |
| 5 | (12) South Carolina | W 44-13 | Game | 1 |
| 6 | Texas A&M | W 41-21 | Game | 1 |
| 7 | at (20) Kentucky | W 27-24 | Game | 1 |
| 8 | at Chattanooga | W 60-0 | Game | 1 |
| 9 | at Missouri | W 48-3 | Game | 1 |
| 11 | at Alabama | W 34-17 | Game | 1 |
| 12 | (9) Georgia | W 45-17 | Game | 1 |
| 14 | Vanderbilt | W 50-21 | Game | 1 |
| SEC Championsip | (6) Auburn | L 20-40 | Game | 1 |
| Fiesta Bowl (Playoff Quarterfinal) | (12) Marshall | W 34-24 | Game | 4 |
| Rose Bowl (Playoff Semifinal) | (1) TCU | L 30-42 | Game | 4 |
Honors
All-Americans
2nd Team
QB Brandon Savage
Freshman All-Americans
1st Team
SS Brandon Duffey
2nd Team
OT Myles Hernandez
All-Conference
1st Team
QB Brandon Savage
WR Matt Siri
2nd Team
WR Hayes Edwards
DT Steve Markkanen
3rd Team
P Marcus Jackson
Freshman
OT Myles Hernandez
DE Doug Dimmadome Jr.
DT Johnathan Sowell
CB Lorenzo Travis
SS Brandon Duffey
Players drafted into the NFL
| Round | Pick | Overall | Player | Position | NFL Team |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 26 | 90 | Matt Siri | New York Jets | WR |
| 3 | 29 | 93 | Jason Marte | Minnesota Vikings | DT |