Syracuse Orange vs Tennessee Volunteers Prediction, Odds and Picks for Saturday, 08/30/25

The color orange will be prominent Saturday afternoon at Mercedes-Benz Stadium when the Tennessee Volunteers take on the Syracuse Orange to open up the 2025 season. Tennessee finished their season last year with an opening round loss in the college football playoff to the eventual champion Ohio State Buckeyes. Despite the disappointing outcome, the Volunteers still finished the season with a record of 10-3, and performed well enough for their head coach, Josh Heupel, to earn an extension until 2030. Syracuse had a solid year themselves in the ACC. The Orange also finished with a record of 10-3, and they were able to take home a victory in the Holiday Bowl against their opponent Washington State. Last year was the first year in charge for head coach Fran Brown. Brown has brought a lot of excitement to Syracuse as the Orange faithful are hopeful for big things from their head coach in the future. Brown was a former defensive coach at Georgia in 2022 and 2023, so he should be somewhat familiar going against Heupel’s offense. 

This game may have the most unknowns out of any game taking place in Week 1. Even Heupel in a press conference this week admitted how many question marks there are going into this game. Both Tennessee and Syracuse have a large number of their starters either graduated or transferred in the offseason and both teams will look quite different from last year. We do not yet know fully who will be out there as both teams seem to be waiting until gameday to announce their depth charts. What we do know is Tennessee will be led by former Appalachian State quarterback Joey Aguilar. Aguilar threw for 3003 yards and 23 touchdowns last season. He is considered a bit of a gunslinger, completing only 55% of his passes and throwing 14 interceptions, but if he can limit turnovers, Aguilar could help Tennessee continue to be a big play offense. Syracuse’s quarterback will come down between Notre Dame transfer Steve Angeli and LSU transfer Rickie Collins. Whoever the quarterback is, they will have big shoes to fill after Kyle McCord threw for 4779 yards last season. Considering how much Tennessee spends on recruiting, they should have a talent advantage at most positions heading into this game, but in their own coaches words, there are too many question marks to lay two touchdowns on them in this game on a neutral site. I like Brown as a coach, and I am excited to see how well he did with his first recruitment class. 

Syracuse +14 is available at the time of publishing. Playable at that number.