IFTIT: Tennessee Vols vs. Syracuse Orange 2025 Football Preview
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Although the 2024 season ended unceremoniously in a frigid blowout loss to eventual national champion Ohio State, the vibes were pretty high around Tennessee football going into the 2025 spring practice season. Then suddenly, on the eve of the Orange & White game, Vol QB Nico Iamaleava made demands that Josh Heupel and the Tennessee program were unwilling to acquiesce to. In a whirlwind, Nico was off to Los Angeles and after a brief but intense portal search, Tennessee landed former UCLA by way of App State QB Joey Aguilar.
It’s been deemed “college football’s first trade” by pundits, but that’s a fable. In a trade both parties agree to fair value and each side is made whole by the assumed equality of the swap. If Josh Heupel had his druthers, I’d bet he’d want to have a returning starter at QB for the first time since 2022. Instead, UT’s man is experienced under center but brand-spanking-new in this offense. The JAGUILAR is a gamer and I’m excited to see him operate in this offense. But to pretend the situation is somehow optimal is dishonest.
No time to make excuses though, as the Vols open with Syracuse: a Power 4 opponent, a team that won 10 games last year, and a team that saw QB Kyle McCord obliterate school passing records under first-year coach Fran Brown (as discussed in the pre-preview for this game earlier this summer). McCord is gone now though, replaced by a QB who, like Aguilar, was on a whole other team through spring practice. Unlike Aguilar, former Notre Dame QB Steve Angeli was brought in because Brown and the Orange were unhappy with the QBs they had after spring drills ended—QBs that Syracuse fully intended to go to work with this fall.
Previously on Vols vs. Orange
Tennessee beat Syracuse 33-9 and Travis Stephens ran for 111 yards and 2 TDs in the 2001 season opener in Knoxville. This will be the third time UT and Syracuse have opened the season against each other (the 1998 opening game shootout won by Tennessee 34-33 with a Jeff Hall field goal in the final seconds will never be forgotten by the living fan). Tennessee is 3-0 in the series which only ever starts or ends a season; the one other game between the schools was a 18-12 UT victory in the 1966 Gator Bowl.
Tennessee Defense vs. Syracuse Offense
Very few returning starters for Syracuse. Considering McCord and his leading WRs from a year ago are all gone, that’s a fact that should be a significant factor when weighing this year’s SU squad’s chances.
Also very few top-200 prospects on the Syracuse offense. One is RG TJ Ferguson who anchors a line rebuilt through the transfer portal. OL was not a strength for the Orange last season, but they do feel like they’ve shored up and leveled up their line for this year.
Another blue chip prospect the Orange have as a potential weapon is Texas WR Johntay Cook, who Syracuse is banking on to by a dynamic playmaker for them this year. The Syracuse offense isn’t going to put up the numbers they did last year, but if they want to be successful at all, they will need Cook to be the dynamic playmaker he has the potential to be.
One other name to look for on the SU offense is TE Dan Villari, who two years ago (under a different coaching staff) showed enough athleticism to have a wildcat package drawn up for him.
Syracuse had one of the worst special teams units in America last year, and that will likely be the case again this season.
On the Tennessee side, it is a veteran group, returning both LBs and most of the line and secondary.
Also a talented group of Vols—several blue chippers on the board and ready to fill in at several positions.
I gave the “star treatment” to two players (i.e. their placeholder is a star rather than a circle on the chart). One is Jermod McCoy, an All-American last season still recovering from an offseason ACL injury.
The other is Boo Carter. That will be a controversial pick, but I did it for two reasons. One, he was a standout as a freshman last year and named to the SEC All-Freshman team. Second, he seems to want the smoke. If you’re going to spend a significant portion of the offseason putting yourself in a spotlight, you better produce when the pads start popping.
Tennessee Offense vs. Syracuse Defense
Lots of new on both sides of this matchup.
‘Cuse had a pretty weak defense last year. They feel pretty strongly that they’ve made significant upgrades to their DL through the transfer portal.
The Syracuse corners are also one of their most talented position groups as well.
On the Tennessee side, the lone returning OL, Lance Heard, will have a lot of eyes on him this season—can Heard live up to the five-star hype that followed him here from LSU?
Speaking of five-star hype, the other OT is David Sanders, who doesn’t have time to be a freshman as he’ll be counted on to produce from day one.
Of course there’s Aguilar and a corps of mostly inexperienced but highly talented WRs, but I actually think the most interesting group to watch on offense outside the OL will be…
The RB room. Who steps into the shoes left by SEC Offensive POY Dylan Sampson? Or is it RB by committee? Star Thomas ran for around 900 yards at Duke last year, and he’s probably the 3rd man up. DeSean Bishop and Peyton Lewis have shown flashes (but for my money, it will be Lewis who separates from the pack by year end).
Still have the Aussie Jackson Ross punting, still have MAXIMUM GILBERT dialed in on the uprights.
Prediction
Let me get this out of the way: this summer, I rolled out our in-house power rating, the JAR Rating System. Version 0.0.1 had a sunny outlook on the Vols’ season, but I always knew I’d need to update some data as it became available near the start of the season. The latest JAR update isn’t as bullish on Tennessee as the season opens:
Now, the final piece of data that pushed UT down the rating list was the pubication of 247’s talent composite for 2025. Tennessee sits at #16, in the talent composite, behind half of the SEC. However, UT does find itself on the blue-chip ratio list for the first time since… I don’t know when. So the talent level shouldn’t be a concern.
In fact talent level is one of the main reasons I have a hard time believing Tennessee does anything other than cruise on Saturday in Atlanta. There are few if any positions where you’d trade what Tennessee has for what the Orange have on the other side. Sure, there question marks for Tennessee—especially on the offensive side of the ball. But Tennessee has shown an ability to run the ball exceedingly well in Josh Heupel’s offense. The Vols have run for 2500+ yards in every season under Heupel, so there’s no reason to think the run game won’t be there for Tennessee again. Then there’s the Vol defense—a unit UT rode to the playoffs a year ago and returning key players at every position group.
Syracuse, for their part, was really good last season. But most of that success was, again, on the arm of Kyle McCord. The special teams were awful. The defense was porous. And while they might have upgraded that defense is spots, the bottom line is Kyle McCord was a 3000-yard passer before he came to Syracuse. Steve Angeli is not.
Syracuse has become a trendy pick over the last couple of weeks. Fran Brown’s success a year ago is a feel-good story, and I’d guess that Brown probably is a very good coach. But while Josh Heupel isn’t the new hotness anymore, he doesn’t need to be. He’s got a track record and consistent success to fall back on. At its flashiest, Heupel’s offense scores 45 points/game. At its grittiest, it runs for 230 yards/game. And now it has a defense to back it up. You’re going to pick against that? In this game? Good luck.
Vols 38, Syracuse 13