Yours truly must eat crow. I thought that recency bias and the SEC connection to ESPN would propel Tennessee to a home game in the College Football Playoff against the Ohio State Buckeyes despite OHio State having a slightly better resume.
I was wrong.
Tennessee moved up one spot in this week’s CFP rankings, coming in at No. 7. However, since they leapfrogged the Miami Hurricanes, the layout of auto bids would result in them still being the No. 9 seed in the bracket, which they were last week.
The only difference is who they would play.
Last week, UT was slotted to visit the Georgia Bulldogs. Ohio State losing to the Michigan Wolverines, though, pushed Ryan Day’s team to No. 6, so now, the No. 9 seed Vols would visit No. 8 seed OSU.
Sorry Vol fans, but there’s nothing that can happen for UT to host a CFP game now.
This week’s rankings had the Oregon Ducks, Texas Longhorns, Penn State Nittany Lions, Notre Dame Fighting Irish and Georgia Bulldogs all ahead of Tennessee along with OSU in that order. Georgia plays Texas, and Oregon plays Penn State this weekend in the SEC and Big Ten championships respectively.
UT’s hope of moving up would theoretically be for Georgia to lose at No. 5 or Penn State at No. 3. Here’s the problem: All year long the committee has made it clear they won’t hold it against teams for playing an extra game when going to their conference title.
That means that if UGA loses to Texas, or even gets blown out, their resume would still just be compared to Tennessee’s based on what they’ve done to this point. The same holds true for Penn State and Texas, who could each have two losses if they win this weekend, and Oregon, who would only have one loss and wouldn’t drop anyay.
Simply put, it’s over. Tennessee is playing on the road. Josh Heupel’s team will have to prepare.
In reality, the game that hurt the Vols the most was the Penn State Nittany Lions and Minnesota Golden Gophers. If Penn State lost that game, UT would have moved ahead of them. Most importantly, though, they cost themselves by losing to the Arkansas Razorbacks.
Other notable CFP rankings include the SMU Mustangs at No. 8, Indiana Hoosiers at No. 9, Boise State Broncos at No. 10, Alabama Crimson Tide at No. 11 and Miami Hurricanes at No. 12. Miami would be the first team out, as this weekend’s Big 12 title winner between the No. 15 Arizona State Sun Devils and No. 16 Iowa State Cyclones will get the fifth auto bid.
