Tennessee’s Path to the College Football Playoff
Photo by Kate Luffman/UT Sports
By Jon Reed
Tennessee lost in Athens. It hurt, both my heart and the Vols postseason chances.
There will be no trip to Atlanta. There will be no trip to New York for Nico or Dylan Sampson. Will there be one to the college football playoff?
Well, that now feels like a coinflip proposition.
You should be fully prepared to see the Volunteers as the first team on the wrong side of the bubble on Tuesday night. Just go ahead and get ready. Yes, I know that Ole Miss lost a home game to a 4-6 Kentucky and that LSU is all of the sudden 6-4 and no longer looking like a quality opponent. Yes, I know that Notre Dame lost to Northern Illinois and that Indiana hasn’t beaten any quality teams. Same for Texas and Penn State.
And yes, I know that Tennessee beat Alabama. Unfortunately, the ship has long sailed on Tennessee being ranked ahead of Alabama if they are both 10-2.
There will be plenty of arguments over the upcoming weeks on what should weigh more between quality wins and bad losses. Recency bias versus full body of work will be debated. How important is the eye test when held up against the metrics? How much does strength of schedule matter?
We will debate, and the committee has shown that the answers will change multiple times between now and when the field is set. So, for now, we wait. And plan ahead.
Here are the games and scenarios you should be paying attention to down the backstretch of the season.
The SEC’s Pack of 10-2 hopefuls
In the current pecking order of 2 loss SEC teams, it seems as if the haters and losers have all come together to say that Tennessee is fourth on the list of four despite the fact that Ole Miss lost at home to Kentucky.
LET ME REPEAT. OLE MISS LOST AT HOME TO A KENTUCKY TEAM THAT HAS ONLY WON 4 OF THEIR TEN GAMES. THERE IS A REALLY, REALLY GOOD CHANCE THAT OLE MISS WILL BE THE ONLY POWER 4 TEAM THAT KENTUCKY BEATS IN THE ENTIRE 2024 SEASON. HERE IS A LIST OF KENTUCKY’S WINS: 1-9 SOUTHERN MISS, 7-3 OHIO, 1-10 MURRAY STATE, (APPARENT) PLAYOFF LOCK OLE MISS. IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING, KENTUCKY’S ONLY WIN AWAY FROM HISTORIC KROGER FIELD WAS AT OLE MISS.
Truth be told, losing to a 6-4 LSU team isn’t that good of a loss either.
Georgia is a deserving lock to be in the playoffs if they take care of Georgia Tech in their season finale, even if they qualify and lose in the SEC championship. People are going to say that Alabama is deserving to get in as well because of their super impressive wins. I’m not even going to try to fight it, because it feels as futile as ramming your head into a steel door, but should Alabama be seen as Teflon just because, in addition to beating Georgia, they beat an injured Missouri, a fraudulent LSU, and survived by 2 at home against South Carolina? If they had a different name, many would say no. But their name matters. And everyone is going to say they belong in regardless of the fact they lost to Vanderbilt and the head-to head battle with Tennessee.
Sidenote: I don’t always think that head-to-head has to be the ultimate trump card. If Alabama finishes strong at Oklahoma and in their Iron Bowl, I won’t even be that mad if they’re ranked ahead of Tennessee—as long as Tennessee gets in.
Texas A&M is lurking. If they win this weekend at Auburn, they’ll set up a home game against Texas that the national media dorks will start calling a playoff qualifier. In a just world, the Aggies winning out would really just eliminate a Texas team devoid of quality wins and bump Tennessee into the playoff field.
But life ain’t fair, and the world is mean. A 10-2 Texas A&M and a 10-2 Texas most likely just makes things much tougher on Tennessee.
Things to root for down the stretch, ranked by a combination of importance and feasibility:
1. Florida beats Ole Miss this weekend in the Swamp. Keep that momentum going, Billy! Ironically enough, Lane Kiffin, someone who recently cried about how his team never gets night games, is blessed here with a noon kickoff on the road. A loss here eliminates Ole Miss; that is great for Tennessee.
2. Alabama loses one of their remaining games (at Oklahoma and home against Auburn). Neither feels very likely, but the Iron Bowl is always crazy. And Alabama did lose to Vanderbilt.
3. Arkansas wins out and finishes 7-5. The Razorbacks should become bowl eligible this weekend against Louisiana Tech. They would then have a chance to get to 7-5 by beating a banged up Missouri team that shouldn’t have near as much to play for after suffering their third loss and having their faint playoff dreams die at South Carolina. The loss that Tennessee took to Arkansas is never going to feel good, but it will look a lot better if they can get to 7-5 while Kentucky, WHO BEAT OLE MISS AT OLE MISS, goes 4-8.
4. Vanderbilt beats LSU this upcoming weekend. We want LSU to look as bad as possible. We want Tennessee to be boosted by beating Vanderbilt on the road as much as possible. Yes, it’ll prop up your enemies like Texas and Alabama if Vandy looks good, but the Vols will then have the chance to come in and beat the Commodores by more points than Texas (only 3) and Alabama (negative 5. They lost. Don’t forget). Knowing how the crooked media will spin this, they will say that Vanderbilt used to be good earlier in the season but are no longer any good if they finish the season as losers of four of their last five games.
5. Auburn wins one more game against either Texas A&M or at Alabama. Choose Joy, Hugh Freeze! Do something this season that you can hang your visor on! The Alabama game would be way cooler, but eliminating A&M would also be beneficial to the Big Orange.
6. Oklahoma finds a sixth win and becomes bowl eligible. They host Alabama and then travel to Baton Rouge to play LSU. It’ll be tough for them to win either, but the Sooners becoming bowl eligible and handing either team a loss would help Tennessee. Obviously, them beating Alabama is the preference here, but even beating LSU would make LSU look a lot worse. Keep in mind, LSU is important when comparing Ole Miss’s “quality” losses and Alabama’s “quality” wins.
7. Clemson beats South Carolina. A 9-3 Gamecock team probably finishes in the top 15. This would give both Alabama and Ole Miss a legitimate quality second win. An 8-4 Gamecock team would be on the cutoff of being ranked. That’s a big difference to the committee.
A lot of these are kind of obvious. Teams ranked ahead of Tennessee need to lose. Teams that Tennessee has played need to finish strong. There’s a solid chance that three teams that were kind of left for dead—Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Florida—can all salvage their seasons down the stretch and make a bowl game at the very least. Throw in NC State, who is currently 5-5. If they can win one of their two remaining games, both on the road at Georgia Tech and UNC, that would give a 10-2 Tennessee wins over five of the seven bowl eligible teams on their schedule. At one point it looked like their schedule would only have two TOTAL bowl eligible teams on it. Going from one win to five would be gigantic for the strength of schedule and record.
The Big Ten and Notre Dame
In the last ranking, the second best conference in the country had four of the top five teams. And no other ranked teams at all, unless you count number 8 Notre Dame who is not really in the Big Ten but all intents and purposes feels like a Big Ten team despite cosplaying as a member of the ACC when it is convenient for them.
Oregon feels like a lock after surviving their scare against Wisconsin. Ohio State is Ohio State (if you’re confused on what that means, please reference the section of this article that talks about Alabama). Indiana, Penn State and Notre Dame should not be getting that treatment.
Indiana is undefeated (for now), and they have a huge game against Ohio State this weekend. They would be legitimized with a win and be considered a playoff lock. With a loss? That **IS** the question. Their current Strength of Schedule is 106. That should jump up quite a bit after going to Columbus, but it should still rank behind pretty much every team in consideration for an at-large bid. In a world where good, hard-working people are rewarded and lazy corner-cutters are punished, Indiana would pay the piper for buying out of their series with Louisville and refusing to schedule another Power 4 opponent. A team with an out of conference schedule of Florida International, Western Illinois and Charlotte should not be playoff eligible if they also lose their only game against a ranked opponent.
Notre Dame has the brand value that Mickey Mouse dreams of, but they lost at home to Northern Illinois, a 3-3 MAC team. Is it as bad as losing AT HOME TO 4-WIN KENTUCKY? IDK but it feels close! ND’s strength of schedule is 82. Their best wins are at Texas A&M and… a 6-4 Louisville? That damn, beautiful helmet is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
Penn State is in if they win out. I’m not sure what happens if they drop another one. They finish with at Minnesota and Maryland.
Things to root for down the stretch, ranked by a combination of importance and feasibility:
1. Notre Dame loses one of their final two games against Army or at USC. Army is “undefeated and ranked” and USC is undefeated after their second bye week. Okay, that has only been one game, and it was only an 8 point win over a 5-5 Nebraska team that has lost 4 in a row, but facts are facts. If the Fighting Irish drop either of these games, they should be eliminated and a spot should be freed up.
2. Penn State loses at Minnesota. Or to Maryland, but that feels stupid to include. All road games at this time of year are dangerous. That dork PJ Fleck had won four games in a row before losing at Rutgers on November 9th. This past weekend they had a bye week. PJ Fleck is 2-0 in the past two seasons coming off of a bye. Last year, they beat a 10-2 Iowa team. This year they pounded 4-6 Maryland by 25.
3. Ohio State pounds Indiana. No pause. Since I do not think they are leaving Ohio State out, we need Ohio State to water the seeds of doubts that Indiana’s schedule have already planted.
4. Texas A&M loses to Auburn and/or Texas. Yeah, I know this isn’t the SEC section, but A&M is propping up Notre Dame’s resume. If A&M stumbles down the stretch and finishes 8-4, would that early season win be enough to prop up a team that LOST TO NORTHERN ILLINOIS AT HOME????????
All in all, Tennessee needs to take care of business and go 10-2. If they do that, a loss by any of the following will almost assuredly put Tennessee in the field: Ole Miss, Alabama, Georgia, or Notre Dame. A loss by Indiana or Penn State **should** be enough for the Vols to jump in, but it would still be left open to discussion and corruption.
Completely unrelated sidenote, but it’s very obvious that the money-hungry people in charge will expand the playoff to 14 or 16 the first chance that they get, but what about expanding it to… 13. I would love if the fifth highest conference champion that will almost always end up just being the Group of 5 champion by default got a home play-in game against the final at-large team. Would you rather watch Boise State play the 5 seed or watch Boise State host a team like Tennessee to see who got to play the 5 seed?
There’s your extra money, Mickey.