Tennessee’s players and coaches would like you to believe that they’re not interested in the College Football Playoff rankings, which will be released tonight.
If that’s the case, then they’re more focused on their upcoming opponent than the rest of the nation. Yes, the No. 7 Vols play Mississippi State for homecoming on Saturday, but that’s largely overshadowed by the rankings announcement tonight at 7 p.m. EST tonight.
“Playoff rankings at this point don’t matter,” UT coach Josh Heupel said during his weekly press conference on Monday. “You don’t have control over it. What you have control over is your preparation and how you play.
“Ultimately that determines where you’re at or where you’re not at. For this football team..we’ve got to continue to grow and get better and, and control those things that we’re in control of. This team’s got to continue to get better. It will be out on Tuesday night. You remember what the first rankings were last year? I don’t either right. So it doesn’t matter. What they remember is where you finish.”
The Vols won’t know where they finish until December. With four games left on their schedule, there is plenty of football left to be played that will affect the final College Football Playoff rankings.
“I think for us, we’re just focused on Mississippi State this week,” Tennessee tight end Holden Staes. “I think our biggest focus from Coach Heupel, down through the rest of the coaches to the players, is just taking it one game at a time.
“So coming down to to the stretch of the season, it’s just a one week season here at this point. We’ve talked about us being in control of our destiny. But in terms of the big picture, College Football Playoff, we know that down the road that will come if we just take it one week at a time and do our job each week, then you know, we’ll have the results we want in terms of that at the end.”
The Bulldogs might not be an easy team to focus on considering State is last place in the SEC race with a 2-7 record overall and 0-5 in the conference.
If the Vols’ defense does face a challenge in the Bulldogs, it will likely come from State’s uptempo offense.
“They go fast,” Tennessee defensive back Jakobe Thomas said. “They play with tempo. A lot of offenses nowadays play with a lot of tempo, but they try to push the tempo as fast as they possibly can.”
That sounds familiar. It should. Heupel and Mississippi State head coach Jeff Lebby have coached together at Central Florida.
“There’s definitely a lot of similarities,” Tennessee defensive back Jakobe Thomas said. “You know they like their big plays. And so we just got to come in this week prepare right, do the right things and be us.”
That should be enough. No matter where the Vols are ranked later this evening.
