Through nine games of the 2025 season, Tennessee’s College Football Playoff hopes have been dashed. The Volunteers dropped their third game of the season on Saturday night, losing to Oklahoma at home to fall to 6-3. Tennessee fell to No. 23 in this week’s AP Poll, and Tuesday’s CFP rankings should be about the same.
So Tennessee now falls into the traditional group of bowl games. The Volunteers are looking at a finishing record of 9-3, 8-4 or even potentially 7-5 in a worst case scenario. That’s going
to put them in play for a Florida bowl game, which the program is plenty familiar with.
Tennessee last appeared in a Florida bowl following the 2023 season, playing Iowa in the Citrus Bowl. The Hawkeyes are likely to be a popular projected opponent for the Volunteers over the next few weeks. For now, the bowl projections are all over the map.
Tennessee football bowl projections (as of Nov. 3)
ESPN (Bonagura): Duke’s Mayo Bowl vs. SMU
ESPN (Schlabach): Reliaquest Bowl vs. Iowa
CBS (Crawford): Citrus Bowl vs. Michigan
On3 (McMurphy): Gator Bowl vs. Miami
Athlon Sports (Lassan): Gator Bowl vs. Miami
The Music City, Liberty and Texas Bowl would also be options here. Tennessee has appeared in the Music City, Gator, Citrus and Reliaquest (Outback) bowls at least once since 2016. They’ve yet to appear in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl in Charlotte.
Tennessee will be in a pool competing with the likes of LSU and Missouri, along with whoever misses the College Football Playoff out of the SEC (potentially Vanderbilt, Texas, Oklahoma).
The Volunteers have New Mexico State, at Florida and Vanderbilt left on the 2025 slate. The College Football Playoff bracket will be announced on December 7th along with the rest of the bowl field.
