Tennessee in the College Football Playoffs. Photo via Tennessee Athletics.
In early July, right around the release of the hit College Football 26 video game by EA Sports, Rocky Top Insider simulated the Vols’ upcoming football season five times to a bevy of different results. In short, Tennessee had an average of 8.8 wins per season, going 1-4 against Georgia, 4-1 against Arkansas, 2-3 against Alabama, 2-3 against Oklahoma, 2-3 against Florida, and 4-1 against Vanderbilt.
Tennessee quarterback Joey Aguilar was the leading passer, while Duke transfer Star Thomas led all running backs, and redshirt freshman Braylon Staley led the receivers in both yards and touchdowns through the air.
The Vols only made the College Football playoffs in one of the five simulations, with other appearances in the Liberty Bowl, the Texas Bowl, the Birmingham Bowl, and the Music City Bowl.
Perhaps ESPN was inspired by Ryan Sylvia’s piece for RTI… or maybe their writers just had the same idea. We’ll go with the first option for fun, but either way, ESPN recently simulated the College Football season 25 times and posted the results.
It’s a little tricky to figure out Tennessee’s exact results in the long list of simulations. ESPN’s Max Olsen did note the Power 4 teams that made multiple trips to the playoffs, and Tennessee was not on that list.
But the article’s feature graphic does show one bracket of complete chaos, which did have Tennessee on the list. The Vols had the No. 7 seed and defeated No. 10 Washington, William Inge’s former team, by a score of 31-21 in a first-round matchup from Neyland Stadium. Tennessee then went on to lose 45-28 to Penn State in the quarterfinal round. When we say chaos, we mean it. The national championship game of this particular simulation saw No. 4 Texas Tech defeat No. 6 Nebraska, 35-13, to hoist the trophy.
Graphic via ESPN’s “Simulating the season using EA Sports College Football 26” article.
More From RTI: Where Tennessee Football Lands In ESPN’s Preseason Bowl Projections
That being said, though, it looks like Tennessee actually did make it at least twice. Later on in the article, Olsen details a Cinderella run from 12-seed Boise State in the fifth simulation that saw them defeat Oregon, Tennessee, and Texas Tech. Once again, this would imply a quarterfinals showing for Josh Heupel’s Volunteers as the No. 4 overall seed.
Tennessee won the SEC Championship one time in the 25 simulations.
The Volunteers aren’t mentioned again in the article except for one more time in the Heisman Trophy category. While Tennessee hasn’t officially named a starter yet, the video game is going with App State/UCLA transfer Joey Aguilar, just like it did in RTI’s simulations from July.
Tennessee’s Joey Aguilar was one of six players to win the Heisman Trophy “multiple” times across the 25 simulations. We don’t get an actual number for the amount won, but the article does say that Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik won it six times, Georgia wide receiver Zacharriah Branch won it four times, and six players won the award one time. That would leave nine remaining seasons for Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith and Julian Sayin, Tennessee’s Joey Aguilar, and Oregon’s Makhi Hughes to win the award on multiple occasions.
That’s all we get on Tennessee’s involvement in ESPN’s simulations. Rocky Top Insider’s simulations, though, went into much more detail. We’ve got season and postseason breakdowns, offensive and defensive stat leaders, and more in ours.
Check out Rocky Top Insider’s College Football 26 simulations here.