On the surface, Tennessee fans should celebrate. The Vols have three players who have earned a variety of All-American Awards in Cooper Mays, Jermod McCoy and Dylan Sampson, and McCoy and Sampson were both AP All-Americans. However, a deeper look shows this was just another postseason slight to the Vols.
Of these three, only Mays was first-team All-American, which he was named on USA TODAY and Sports Illustrated. Somehow, though, Mays couldn’t make any of the three AP All-American teams, losing out to Jake Slaughter of the Florida Gators, Seth McLaughlin of the Ohio State Buckeyes and Jacob Gardner of the Colorado State Rams.
How could other outlets consider Mays the best center in the nation but AP not consider him top three? Well, that’s just the start of the disrespect.
Remember, the AP All-Americans have two running backs for each team. Somehow, Sampson fell to Third Team All-American running back. That means AP voters collectively did not consider Sampson, the SEC’s leading rusher and scorer, a top four running back in the nation.
So who was ahead of him?
Ashton Jeanty of the Boise State Broncos was an obvious one. No issue there. The other was Cam Skattebo of the Arizona State Sun Devils. Skattebo only averaged 0.2 yards more per carry and had one less touchdown against way worse competition, but he’s two All-American teams ahead of Sampson?
Second Team All-Americans were Omarion Hampton of the North Carolina Tar Heels and Kaleb Johnson of the Iowa Hawkeyes. Hampton averaged just 0.1 yards more per carry than Sampson and had seven fewer touchdowns while playing in the ACC. How could anybody think he’s better?
Simply put, this was a complete screwjob against Sampson and Mays. Both deserved to be AP All-Americans, and both probably deserved to at least be second team. Instead, McCoy was the only second teamer, and ironically, he may have been the least deserving.
Of course, a College Football Playoff run would outweigh any awards for these players, but they still have every reason to be upset with how this all played out. There’s no way somebody could think voters were not either lazy or working with a vendetta against Tennessee with how postseason recognition played out. That’s a bad look.
