ESPN’s FPI predicts outcome of every remaining game on Tennessee’s 2025 schedule
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ESPN’s Football Power Index has updated its projections for the remainder of Tennessee‘s season.
For the 15th-ranked Volunteers, it’s been a mixed bag so far in 2025. Yes, Joey Aguilar has been a smashing success as the new starting quarterback after the ugly departure of Nico Iamaleava, and, yes, Tennessee is ranked and very much in the mix for an SEC title and even a College Football Playoff spot.
But then there was Week 3 and that nightmare of a home loss to Georgia, which stormed back and outlasted the Vols in an overtime thriller at Neyland Stadium. Tennessee bounced back last week and pounded UAB at home, leaving the Volunteers at 3-1, and now another SEC challenge awaits in Week 5 with a trip to Starkville to play a 4-0 Mississippi State team. It’s a 4:15 p.m. ET kickoff on SEC Network, as Tennessee tries to even its SEC record at 1-1 against a Bulldogs team playing its SEC opener.
That’s where the Vols stand now. But what about after Week 5 and throughout the rest of the season? That’s where the updated FPI projections come in.
Here is FPI’s updated win probabilities for Tennessee in each of its remaining contests:
- Sept. 27 at Mississippi State — 73.7%
- Oct. 11 vs. Arkansas — 74.3%
- Oct. 18 at No. 17 Alabama — 33.5%
- Oct. 25 at Kentucky — 77.3%
- Nov. 1 vs. No. 7 Oklahoma — 66.3%
- Nov. 15 vs. New Mexico State — 99.0%
- Nov. 22 at Florida — 71.7%
- Nov. 29 vs. No. 18 Vanderbilt — 63.5%
So, the only game in Tennessee’s remaining 8 contests where the FPI believes the Vols might be in trouble is that mid-October trip to Tuscaloosa to play Alabama. Other than that, the FPI thinks that Tennessee will take care of business for the rest of the 2025 season.
Will it all be good enough for Josh Heupel‘s team to return to the Playoff? That’s why they play the games, starting with Saturday’s trip to Starkville.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
