No. 17 Tennessee (6-2, 3-2 SEC) has an open date on Saturday in Week 9 of the 2026 college football season. Rankings reflect the US LBM Coaches Poll.

The Vols will return to action on Nov. 7 versus No. 8 Kentucky (7-1, 5-1 SEC). Kickoff between the Vols and Wildcats is slated for 6:15 p.m. EST at Neyland Stadium. ESPN will televise the matchup in Week 10.

"BYE week, got on the field today with our guys," Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel said. "Good work. Were in the building yesterday, what's a typical Monday for us and opportunity to get healthy, physically as much as you can at this point in the year and then opportunity to get better.

"Everything in this game is about how you finish and you can look back at last week and us not finishing the game that we need to and you can push forward to needing to go finish the season the way that we need to, so a lot of growth needs to happen this week for us and get ready to go play a really good Kentucky team here in a week and a half."

Tennessee's home schedule in 2026 consists of games against Furman (W, 56-9), Kennesaw State (W, 42-9), Texas (L, 20-17), Auburn (W, 24-14), Alabama (W, 26-10), Kentucky and LSU, while playing at Georgia Tech (W, 45-24), Arkansas (W, 24-17), South Carolina (L, 27-24), Texas A&M and Vanderbilt.

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