Tennessee To Face Top SEC Talent Before Hosting Conference Champs

The University of Tennessee has announced its swimming & diving schedule, a slugger’s row of top SEC talent culminating in a home SEC Championship meet.

The Vols will have their work cut out for them, swimming against the top 3 men’s teams and 2 of the top 4 women’s teams from last year’s SEC meet.

The fall season, though, is mostly ACC-heavy, with Tennessee hosting UNC and Louisville on back-to-back weekends. That Louisville meet sets up a tough travel slate – it takes place on Thursday, October 27, and on the 28th, the Vols are supposed to be in Lexington, Kentucky to take on Kentucky and Indiana in a triangular at 2pm.

It appears Tennessee will have a few options for mid-season focus meets. They’ve listed the Wolfpack Fall Invite on their schedule, which would offer an early chance to hit some NCAA invite times against NC State, one of the fastest-rising programs in the NCAA. UT has also listed USA Nationals, which take place in Atlanta, and the Short Course World Championships in Ontario, Canada. That suggests at least some of Tennessee’s top talent will compete at both meets.

The Vols have a pretty good store of international-level swimmers. Kira Toussaint is a Dutch national record-holder and NCAA runner-up Peter John Stevens is one of the better swimmers from Slovenia, among several others.

Auburn is the toughest SEC opponent of the fall semester. They come to Knoxville on November 11. The Tigers were 2nd for the men and 4th for the women at last year’s SECs.

Then the second semester schedule features Georgia and Florida on back-to-back weeks. Georgia won the women’s NCAA title last year and should be contenders again this season. The Florida men won the SEC title a year ago, while Georgia was third.

Here’s the full Tennessee schedule, which you can also find on the Vols website: