Tennessee has filled out more of its future football calendar, adding five non-conference games that stretch through the 2031 season and all of them will be played at Neyland Stadium.
The slate includes familiar in-state opponents Chattanooga, Austin Peay and UT Martin, along with Bowling Green. The Vols are set to meet Chattanooga twice, once on Sept. 16, 2028, and again on Sept.
8, 2029. Tennessee will pay UTC $550,000 for each game.
The 2028 matchup with the Mocs will sit alongside home dates with Central Michigan and West Virginia in Charlotte as Tennessee’s non-conference schedule that season.
The 2029 schedule also includes Bowling Green, with that game set for Sept. 15. Tennessee will pay $1.3 million for the meeting, and Washington rounds out the other non-conference game that year.
UT Martin is next on the list in 2030, with the game scheduled for Aug. 31.
The agreed-upon payout is $550,000. Tennessee’s out-of-conference schedule that season also includes a road game at Washington, with one more non-SEC game still to be added.
Austin Peay is the first game on Tennessee’s 2031 schedule, set for Aug. 30. That game also comes with a $550,000 payment.
Josh Heupel’s Tennessee teams have already handled each of these opponents. The Vols opened the Heupel era against Bowling Green in 2021 on a Thursday night and won 38-6 behind Joe Milton III at quarterback. Tennessee is 2-0 all-time against the Falcons.
UT Martin came next in 2022, when Tennessee won 65-24 and moved to 2-0 in that series as well. Austin Peay followed in 2023, a 30-13 Tennessee win in what the source described as an ugly game, pushing that series to 2-0 in the Vols’ favor.
Chattanooga was the most recent of the group, with Tennessee rolling to a 69-3 win in 2024. The Vols now own a 41-2-2 record in that set of games.
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Tennessee May Be Closing In On A Quarterback Heupel Really Wants
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Crafts profile helps explain why Tennessee is pushing here. He is drawing interest from several major programs and sits high on national recruiting boards across multiple services, giving this pursuit the feel of an early battle rather than a routine offer-and-wait situation. For Josh Heupel and his staff, landing a quarterback this early in the cycle would be a meaningful step, but the race is still open enough that the next move could matter just as much as the visits already in the books. [Read more 🡒]