Weekend Rooting Guide for Tennessee fans 11-2-24
It is November.
The time change happens this weekend, and a lot of your life will now be swallowed up by darkness and despair. You must cling to the things in life that make you happy. Family (if you have one that you like), the holidays (if they don’t depress you because of the aforementioned family situation or a lack of money), and the college football postseason.
If Tennessee makes it.
Tennessee is going to make it.
As long as they go 10-2, right?
…….. Right?
For the entire offseason and the first month of the season, the discussion surrounding the Volunteers was that if they won ten games, they would be in the inaugural 12-team playoff. Then, we got to the end of October and all of the sudden it feels like a 50/50 proposition at best with the way the season is shaking out.
I don’t want you to go crazy like John Nash in A Beautiful Mind or Charlie Kelly stressfully ripping cigarettes in the mailroom, so I will take on the responsibility for you each week from here on out and piece the map together and give you the rooting guide for the weekend. I’ll try to rank them by importance.
1) Tennessee (home) over Kentucky
This one is simple. Tennessee cannot afford to lose this game. Even a win in Athens a couple of weeks from now may not be enough to wash away the sins of losing to this Kentucky team. They stink.
Tennessee is favored by 17.5.
2) South Carolina (home) over Texas A&M
It feels gross relying on the weasel Shane Beamer, but we gotta do it.
This one is twofold. A&M is standing in front of Tennessee for both the playoffs and a spot in the SEC championship. I don’t know how much you all care about playing for a conference title, but I would like knowing that we would at least qualify for the game if we beat Georgia. A&M losing goes a long way to helping make that come true.
At this point the Aggies have an “impressive” blowout against Missouri and a double digit win against LSU. If they make it out of Columbia this weekend with a win, the rest of their schedule sets up pretty nicely with a bye week, New Mexico State, and a trip to Auburn (who kinda sucks but also is a little better than you think) before finishing their season at home against Texas.
The Texas game could end up not really mattering for either the playoffs or the SEC title by the time the game actually rolls around if A&M keeps winning, and that would also feel like a disappointment. All of college football needs that game to be an elimination game.
A&M is favored by 3.5.
3) Arkansas (home) over Ole Miss
Tennessee wants the loss to Arkansas to look the least amount of bad as possible. The more Arkansas wins, the better of a team they seem. Duh.
A loss by Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss eliminates them from playoff consideration. At the moment they are kind of laying in the weeds, but, if they’re able to win at Arkansas Saturday, they will set up a monster game next weekend when Georgia comes to town. If Lane Kiffin somehow beat Georgia and won his first big game of the last decade, they’d have only a trip to Florida and a home game against Mississippi State standing between them and a chance for an at large bid.
Ole Miss is favored by 7.5. Go Hogs.
4) Michigan State (home) over Indiana
Indiana is fun! Cinderella! A reason to love college football!
Maybe, but now they are an enemy of the Power T. Therefore, I will root for their demise.
They have no real quality wins, but you cannot argue with how dominant they’ve been up until this point. I don’ t know how the committee will judge their resume, even if they go 11-1, but the more losses the better.
To finish the season after this trip to State, they host Michigan, a bye week, and a trip to Ohio State that may be the biggest game in program history. They finish the year at home against their biggest rival Purdue, who sucks!
Indiana is favored by 7.5.
5) Florida over Georgia
Similar explanation as the Arkansas write-up. Tennessee needs as many quality wins as possible. There is a pretty realistic scenario where the Vols have only four games against bowl eligible teams. Not wins, just games.
Florida hasn’t been nearly as terrible as we thought. They’re lowkey competent. At least that’s what we need the story to be since they took us to overtime in Neyland.
Georgia losing always feels good. Maybe tickets would get a little bit cheaper so that more orange shows up in Sanford on the 16th. They would also go from a lock to take one of the playoff spots to on the bubble as they head into back-to-back games against top 20 teams.
Georgia is favored by 14.5.
(Sidenote: can we quit pretending that the Cocktail party is cool or important in college football? There hasn’t been an important moment in that game since Urban Meyer was on the sideline. It’s a lifeless, boring neutral site game.)
6) Texas Tech over Iowa State (home)
We really don’t want Iowa State to finish the regular season undefeated. That would open the door to them losing in the Big 12 Championship to a team with one or two losses and almost assuredly guaranteeing that two Big 12 teams make the playoffs.
Iowa State is favored by 13.5.
7) Penn State (home) over Ohio State
This would give the Buckeyes their second loss of the season. So far, their best win is against Michigan State. That leaves a lot to be desired! If they lose this game, their only chance for a quality regular season win would be at home against Indiana. I don’t think there’s really any world where a 10-2 Ohio State doesn’t get in over a 10-2 Tennessee, but a loss here at least makes the Indiana matchup later in the season much more intriguing.
Ohio State is favored by 3.5.
8) Louisville over Clemson (home)
Despite beating absolutely no one, Clemson has been surging on the “respect meter.”
Their best win is a 31 point game against Georgia to open the year that they’re kind of getting credit for being competitive in despite… losing by 31 points just because it was only 6-0 at halftime.
At home they’ve beaten: App State, NC State, Stanford and Virginia. On the road they’ve beaten: Florida State and Wake Forest.
How have they surged to having the seventh best odds to make the playoffs (just slightly ahead of Tennessee’s)? I don’t know. I would like for them to lose this game.
Louisville is only 5-3, but all of their losses have been against quality teams (@ Notre Dame, SMU, Miami) and by only 7 points. If the Tigers win this one, they finish the season on the road against Va Tech and Pittsburgh before hosting The Citadel and Weasley Shane Beamer.
This one would be higher on the importance scale if Clemson wouldn’t still have a pretty clear path to the ACC title game even with a loss in this one. (I guess that explains why they have the seventh best odds to make the playoffs.)
Clemson is favored by 10.5.
9) Houston (home) over Kansas State
K State feels like the most legitimate of the Big 12 teams to me. I say that as a guy that’s not really watched any Big 12 games outside of Colorado’s season opener, K State’s win over Arizona, and whatever the hell you want to call two Oklahoma State games.
A Wildcat loss drops them to 7-2, likely out of the Top 25, and could possibly make a couple of other teams like BYU and potentially Iowa State look a little less impressive at the end of the season.
Kansas State is favored by 12.5.