the 2024 Tennessee football season is upon us some of you may feel like wow this has taken forever to get here others of you might feel like hey I was just in Omaha a few weeks ago with the baseball team this is David Pascal of the Chattanooga Times Free Press and Tennessee absolutely has a lot of reasons to be excited about the months ahead uh Tennessee has a very veteran offensive line six multi-year seniors in that group which will give a lot of protection to red shirt freshman quarterback Nico iamal AA there's a lot of hype surrounding Nico uh but they have a really good team around him Cooper Mays is an All-American Center uh javant fragin a guard in his sixth year so it's a very veteran group and Tennessee's also really veteran on the defensive side they've got five multi-year seniors on the defensive side of the ball so the guts of Tennessee's football team is the best that it's been in a long long time uh Tennessee has one of the great Edge rushers in the country James Pierce Jr who a lot of people think could be the top pick in next year's NFL Draft one of the big questions from a Personnel standpoint is the secondary it's a much younger group they had a lot of people leave the program last year but the coaches swear that this is a more talented faster longer more athletic group and that this secondary is going to be even better than what you've seen the last few years uh if I had to list the biggest concern for Tennessee it would be a schedule that overall is pretty manageable I mean you think about the teams that have been picked at the bottom of the SEC arkans Mississippi State Vanderbilt Tennessee gets to play all those teams but they've got a couple of tricky games in September they play North Carolina state in Charlotte the second week of the season and they play at Oklahoma the fourth week of the season they have to win those two games I think if they're going to stay in the hunt for the college football playoff this is the first year that the college football playoff has had 12 teams and Tennessee is beginning this season ranked 15th so they need to move up just a little bit by the end of the year to get in that top 12 if you had to ask C I think they'll do this year I don't think they will win at Georgia I think Alabama coming to Knoxville is going to be tough and I think that at Oklahoma game that I mentioned in late September is going to be tough that would put Tennessee at 9 and three I don't think nine and3 is going to be good enough to get to the playoff but if Tennessee were to win at Oklahoma or beat Alabama in Knoxville which they did two years ago now you're talking about a 10 and two team and I think a 10 and2 Tennessee makes the college football playoff the bottom line is we're a long way from talking about those five and seven teams that Tennessee had a few years ago things are much better on Rocky Top it should be a very very exciting season again I think they'll finish nine and three but if I had to pick in One Direction uh if they didn't finish n and three I would say 10- two and again I think a 10-2 Tennessee makes the college football playoff the season starts Saturday 1245 on the SEC network against the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga mock so we've got a local show Showdown to get things going for the Times Free Press this is David Pascal