Tennessee opened the conference with a convincing 25-15 victory over Oklahomaproving that it was capable of winning away from home against a good opponent.

And at least one ESPN analyst sees it as a sign that the Volunteers are College American Football Playoffs-caliber team.

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“They’ve been terribly bad on foreign soil,” ESPN said. Paul Finebaum said on Sports center. “And they finally put an end to that last night. Let’s face it, Oklahoma is not the Oklahoma of Baker Mayfield And Kyler Murray and the good old days. This is more of a pedestrian unit, and Jackson Arnold definitely had trouble.

“But Tennessee has everything figured out and honestly, this looks like a team that can easily make the playoffs, maybe even late into January.”

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It was the defense that stood out in Saturday night’s game, although quarterback Nico Iamaleava did a good enough job leading the offense. Oklahoma, however, couldn’t move the ball routinely.

The Sooners had just 222 total yards of offense in the game and never really made a game of it. Twelve of the team’s 15 points in the game came in the fourth quarter, with Tennessee holding a sizable lead.

The win moves the Volunteers to 1-0 in SEC play and starts the season on a positive note.

It was also important that a meaningful victory for coach Josh Heupelwho nearly won the Heisman Trophy at Oklahoma but was later fired by the Sooners as an assistant coach on offense.

“Well, this game coming back for our football team wasn’t about me. It wasn’t. It was about this 2024 journey and our football team. But they realized it was important for me to come back and I wanted to win,” Heupel told ESPN reporters on the sideline Holly Rowe after the victory.

“At the end of the day, I know mom is watching, up there. But this is the next step for this soccer team in this journey. It’s hard to win away, on the night, against a good team. We found a way to do that. Good teams keep getting better, we’ve got to keep finding ways to get better.”

And then there’s this amazing stat from SportsCenter: Tennessee hasn’t trailed a single game this season.

A dominant start for a team that could easily impact the play-offs in December.