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Why Tennessee Football is hosting ETSU in its home opener at Neyland Stadium

IMG_3593by: Grant Ramey09/05/25GrantRamey
ETSU Athletics
ETSU Athletics

Tennessee Football will host East Tennessee State in its home opener at Neyland Stadium on Saturday afternoon, which means a big payday for the Buccaneers. The trip to Knoxville means a $575,000 for ETSU, dating back to a game contract signed by former athletic director Phillip Fulmer in July 2020. 

The Vols (1-0) and Bucs (1-0) are scheduled for a 3:3 p.m. Eastern Time start, streaming on ESPN+ and SEC Network+. 

Tennessee got paid $3.8 million for the neutral-site game against Syracuse last week in the season opener, a 45-26 win over the Orange in the Aflac Kickoff Game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. 

UAB is getting $1.65 million for its game at Tennessee on September 27 and New Mexico State is getting $1.6 million for playing the Vols on Homecoming on November 15.

Tennessee’s non-conference schedule set for 2026, 2027

Other buy games on future schedules are Furman and Kennesaw State in 2026 and Tennessee State and Western Michigan in 2027. 

The Vols also currently have power-conference opponents scheduled through 2030, going to Georgia Tech next season, hosting Georgia Tech in 2028 and playing a neutral-site game against West Virginia in Charlotte in 2028. A home-and-home begins at home against Washington in 2029 before going to Seattle in 2030.

Saturday’s game is just the second all time between Tennessee and ETSU, despite the two schools being separated by just 100 miles. 

The Vols beat the Bucs 59-3 on September 8, 2018, when they passed for 224 yards and a touchdown and ran for 190 yards and had five touchdowns on the ground. 

Former Tennessee quarterback and offensive coordinator Randy Sanders was the head coach at ETSU at the time, saying in the week leading up to the game that he would walk back to Johnson City naked if the Bucs could pull off a historic upset.

“I’d have that goalpost thrown over my shoulder coming back up the interstate,” Sanders said at the time. “I can tell you, I wouldn’t be riding no bus. I’d be walking, probably naked, with that thing over my shoulder.”

ETSU Football program shut down in 2003, brought back in 2015

Sanders was head coach for four seasons at ETSU, taking the Bucs from three wins in 2019 to an 11-2 season in 2021, advancing to the quarterfinals in the FCS playoffs before losing at North Dakota State.

Former North Carolina head coach Carl Torbush was hired as head coach at ETSU in 2015 to resurrect a football program that had been shutdown following the 2003 season for financial reason. 

Torbush’s team won two games in 2015, then went 5-6 and 4-7 over the next two seasons, in 2016 and 2017, before Sanders was hired. 

Will Healy was hired during the offseason, with the former Austin Peay and Charlotte head coach replacing Tre Lamb, who was hired away as Tulsa’s head coach after one season at ETSU, going 7-5. 

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