The weekend went better than expected for the Vols, as the Florida Gators beat the Ole Miss Rebels, the Ohio State Buckeyes destroyed the Indiana Hoosiers, and the Oklahoma Sooners destroyed the Alabama Crimson Tide. That at least got Tennessee two teams clear of falling out of the College Football Playoff.
If the rankings only change this week by dropping the teams who lost below Tennessee, the Vols would move up to No. 8 in the CFP, which would be a No. 9 seed since two auto-bids one be below them, and one has to be a top four seed. However, they look more like a 10-seed, as it’s not clear if Indiana would drop below them.
Either way, they are one or two spots away from a home playoff game. Do they want it, though?
Let’s first break down how they could get that. The Oregon Ducks, Ohio State Buckeyes, Texas Longhorns, Penn Stat Nittany Lions, Notre Dame Fighting Irish and Georgia Bulldogs will all be ahead of Tennessee in the CFP. Then you have two teams among the ACC, Big 12 and Group of Five league champions to get two more of the byes.
Who among those teams could UT jump?
Well, assuming they stay ahead of Indiana, Texas and Notre Dame are most likely. Texas could lose on the road to the Texas A&M Aggies this week, and Notre Dame could lose on the road to the USC Trojans. Of course, Penn State could lose to the Maryland Terrapins at home, and Georgia could lose to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, but both are way unlikely.
Even if Ohio State and Oregon lost, they would still both be likely ahead of the Vols. Ohio State has two quality wins, both better than Tennessee’s best quality win at the moment, and both would be 10-2. Oregon is undefeated. There’s pretty much nothing UT can do to surpass them.
With that in mind, the path to a home playoff game is the No. 8 seed. That’s a problem.
If UT gets the No. 8 seed, that means the Vols would have to play the No. 1 seed in the second round. The top seed will likely be Oregon or Ohio State, two teams Tennessee should certainly hope to avoid at all costs. Ever team’s goal should be to face the No. 3 or No. 4 seed, the non-SEC or Big Ten teams to win their conference, the next round.
There’s another tricky aspect to this, though. Will the SEC champion be the No. 2 or No. 3 seed? Currently, Georgia is behind Miami in the CFP, but if the Dawgs win the SEC by just beating A&M and Miami wins the ACC, will that still hold? In that case, UT wants the 10-seed and to be behind Indiana.
At the same time, though, if the Dawgs to move up to the 2-seed, UT doesn’t want the 10-seed anymore than the 8-seed. In that scenario, the Vols would indeed want home-field advantage in the first round, as it’s a wash in pure talent between facing Ohio State, Oregon or Georgia.
Simply put, it’s not clear where Tennessee wants to land in the final CFP rankings. Realistically, if they beat the Vanderbilt Commodores, it’s anywhere from the 10-seed to the 8-seed. If the ACC champion stays ahead of Georgia, they want to be locked into the 10-seed. Otherwise, it’s worth playing for the 8-seed.
