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Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel and his team sent a subtle, yet strong, message to the rest of college football on Tuesday at SEC Media Days in Dallas.

Heupel and his team aren’t the types to put much stock into preseason predictions.

They understand that those predictions have zero impact on how the 2024 season will play out.

But at the same time, you could sense on Tuesday that Tennessee views themselves as being part of the College Football Playoff/National Championship conversation.

“Obviously, our team, we don’t need validation from anyone,” said Vols senior defensive lineman Omari Thomas on Tuesday.

“We don’t look for validation from anyone. It’s just good to know that we come here together, we got each other’s back, we’re going to be the ones to push ourselves to get to where we want to go and that’s to win a national championship.”

Heupel, who won a national championship as a player at Oklahoma in 2000, echoed Thomas’ championship comments while speaking with local reporters on Tuesday in Dallas.

“We’re in a race to get there as fast as we can. We’ve done a lot of great things in the last three years, last season included.

Proud of the steps that we’ve taken. But we got to continue to climb.”

“Everybody inside of our building understands the expectation, standards, and goals that we have,” added Heupel.

“The expectations are never going to be greater outside of the building than they are inside of it.”