The 2023 Tennessee Volunteers Volunteers football team during the 2023 CFB Season. The team was lead by head coach tsweezy.

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.

The 2023 Season saw Tennessee run pretty much wire to wire in the regular season with a record setting offense and a near-dominant defense. The only reason this team didn't set almost every record was the introduction of garbage time. In the 12 regular season games, the backups played for 9.5 quarters (20% of the season) and the backup defense in particular gave up almost 1/3 of the season points allowed.

The season started with a seeming tune-up against Maryland in the back half of the home and home. Our first look at the team in real game action featured Savage throwing for over 400 yards and 5 TDs, WRs Hayes Edwards and Matt Siri each gathering > 200 receiving yards, the backups (and later third string) getting significant playing time, all while the defense held UMD to 7 points. 45-7 final score.

The next week was the off-season most hyped game of the year. #1 Tennessee travelling down to Tallahassee to face #2 FSU. FSU was coming off a 70 point win in week 1 and RB Clayton Mcgee looked unstoppable, along with the defense and it's 3 A overall CBs. This was probably the game that won Savage the Heisman honestly as he threw for over 600 yards and the defense notched 4 sacks along with holding Mcgee under 100 yards rushing.

The offense looked a bit hungover the next week, putting up their second worst game of the season against southern miss. Luckily the defense came through and TENN won the game 33-3.

The next 3 weeks saw Tenn roll through conference play, going up ~40-10 against Florida, South Carolina, and Texas A&M in the third quarter before the backups rolled in (and gave up a few scores). Cruising along

The next big game circled was traveling to a #20 Kentucky team. Despite early losses to Georgia and USC, Kentucky still looked stacked on paper. This was a slugfest as the Lexington home crowd caused a few penalties and there was some uncharacteristic poor play by the offense. Luckily the defense played well and they scored just enough points to squeak by 27-24

Tennessee absolutely pasted Chattanooga and Missouri the next 2 weeks.

Alabama hate week came at an inopportune time as the Tide had found their footing after a horrific start to the season. Despite the ground attack recording only 13 yards on 13 carries, Savage threw for nearly 500 to lift the team to a 34-17 victory and claim revenge from the previous years SEC CCG.

The last real hurdle was against a top-10 Georgia team with a lot of veteran leadership and a well rounded roster. Luckily the game was in Knoxville and Savage out-dueled Outman throwing 6 TDs as they outpaced the Dawgs through the end.

An easy win over a dogwater Vandy squad and boom. 12-0 regular season, only undefeated team in the country, #1 in the rankings with the Heisman frontrunner in Brandon Savage (5000 passing yards in the regular season despite sitting for the equivalent of 2 games). How could life get any better?

Unfortunately the team got too fat and happy and the air raid squad of Moncrief and Hester from Auburn pulled off the SEC CCG upset. For the second year in a row the Volunteers went to Atlanta as the favorites and fell to a team from Alabama. Sad.

They hung on to the #4 spot in the rankings which gave them a first round playoff bye which saw Marshall pull a huge upset over Notre Dame. In the quarterfinals, the Volunteers played the Thundering Herd, a team with one of the strongest run blocking OLs of all time and a dominant ground game (albeit no ability to pass). The defense held tight and Savage had a solid day, lifting the team to a 34-24 victory and a Fiesta Bowl Trophy.

The semi-final was in gorgeous Pasadena at the Rose Bowl. We got absolutely pasted by TCU. Moving on

How is this a question? Brandon Savage. The man was the HEISMAN TROPHY winner and put up ungodly numbers in 13/15 games this season. We are so lucky as a program to have signed him. I can't sing his praises high enough and I'm absolutely sure 75% of coaches around the league are sick of hearing about him. Too bad. Final season stats: 6649 yards, 52 TDs.

see: MVP. Savage is the obvious choice. Nobody else moved the needle outside the WR room and they had too many cooks.

ILB JT Adams was the absolute lynchpin of our defense. As an A- overall run stopper he helped man the front-7 in a defense that was excellent all year against the run (TCU game aside). By far the team leader in tackles along with 25 TFLs, 1 strip-sack, 2 INTs, and a safety. We will miss him dearly.

There were not a lot of freshmen who played, and only 2 true freshmen recorded any stats at all: DE Roger London (5 tackles, 1 FF before redshirting after game 4), and QB Mark Koch (22/34 197 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT in 3rd string mop-up duty). This award though goes to RS FR Doug Dimmadome Jr. Son of Doug Dimmadome owner of the Dimmsdale Dimmadome. DDJr was 5th on the team with 4 TFLs, 2 sacks, and a FR as he established himself as a valuable DL rotational member.

ILB JT Adams

DT Steve Markkanen

QB Brandon Savage

WR Matt Siri

C Emmanuel Matthews

QB Brandon Savage

SS Brandon Duffey

OT Myles Hernandez

QB Brandon Savage
WR Matt Siri

WR Hayes Edwards
DT Steve Markkanen

P Marcus Jackson

OT Myles Hernandez
DE Doug Dimmadome Jr.
DT Johnathan Sowell
CB Lorenzo Travis
SS Brandon Duffey