Tennessee football has 12th best odds to win national title

Tennessee football has the 12th best odds to win the 2024 College Football Playoff National Championship, according to Vegas Insider. The Vols are +2200 at Caesars Sportsbook, +2800 at DraftKings and +3000 at FanDuel, BetMGM and PointsBet.

Georgia is the favorite to win a third straight national title, ahead of Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan and USC. Then it’s LSU, Florida State, Clemson, Penn State, Texas and Notre Dame ahead of the Vols. 

Tennessee opens Year 3 under Josh Heupel on September 2 against Virginia at Nissan Stadium in Nashville. The Vols open their home schedule a week later against Austin Peay, on September 9 at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, then go to Florida on September 16 to open the SEC slate at Ben Hill Griffen Stadium in Gainesville.

Tennessee hosts Texas San Antonio on September 23 and has South Carolina for its SEC home opener on September 30. Texas A&M comes to Neyland Stadium on October 14 and the Vols go to Alabama on October 21 and to Kentucky on October 28.

November includes home dates with UConn (Nov. 4), Georgia (Nov. 18) and Vanderbilt (Nov. 25), the regular-season finale, and a road game at Missouri (Nov. 11).

Tennessee looking to build on momentum from 11-win season

The Vols are coming off an 11-2 season in 2022, winning 10 games in the regular season for the first time since 2003 and winning 11 games in a season for the first time since 2001. Heupel said last week during an appearance on Josh & Swain that the quick turnaround of the Tennessee program goes back to staff and players alike being on the same page.

“Typically you’ve got to have great leadership in (your program),” he said, “that helps push everybody over the fence. And start living right and doing right, creating great energy and competition and accountability inside of the building. 

“Some of the success in Year 1, every time I’ve been apart of starting something from scratch a little bit, as a player or as a coach, there is increased buy-in through each cycle as kids get comfortable in hearing the message and understanding what it is going to look like every day. And some success that we have during the course of the fall, once we started playing, helped continue to heighten our players urgency and doing things the right way and preaching our culture inside the building.”

Heupel led the Vols to a 7-6 record in his first season in Knoxville, taking Tennessee to the Music City Bowl despite inheriting a roster decimated by the NCAA Transfer Portal following the firing of JeremyPruitt.

Josh Heupel: ‘We took a massive step last year’

The exclamation point last season was a 31-14 win over Clemson in the Orange Bowl in Miami in December, Tennessee’s first trip to a New Years Six bowl game in the College Football Playoff era The Vols started the season 8-0, going all the way up to No. 1 in the first College Football Playoff Top 25 of the season in November.

“We took a massive step last year,” Heupel said. “This group, since they’ve gotten back in January, has been absolutely awesome. How they approach their workouts, how they approach their daily lives. The competitiveness they have from within. There is increased leadership inside of our building. Guys that are going to make sure their teammates are doing it right. 

“I love what we did during spring ball. Extremely physical, a lot of great competition on the grass as we go into the third quarter of our offseason, in summer workouts. Our urgency has to continue to increase and we’ve got to continue to grow as a football program.”