In the end, life worked out for the Big Ten and the SEC in the College Football Playoff in 2024, as every 10-2 team or better in both leagues got in. However, that almost wasn’t the case. In the second to last week of the regular season, multiple schools, including Tennessee were on the outside looking in.
On that day, the Ole Miss Rebels and Alabama Crimson Tide both suffered their third loss of the year in upsets. If that didn’t happen, though, the CFP selection committee would have been forced to eliminate at least one, possibly two 10-2 teams from its premiere leagues at the end of the season.
The Vols might not be so lucky this year.
After the way the CFP played out, the committee is likely going to place a lot more value on schedule strength this year. The Indiana Hoosiers lost in blowout fashion to the only two good teams they played this past year, and they don’t want to see that happen again.
In that scenario, Tennessee has a lot working against it. The Vols, based on last year’s records, have the second easiest schedule in the SEC. Say they go 10-2 and lose on the road to the Florida Gators, where they haven’t won since 2003, and say Florida goes 9-3.
There’s no way the committee could honestly put Tennessee ahead of Florida in that situation.
Put that aside for a second, though. Maybe they will overvalue record once again like they did this past year. There’s this belief that Indiana was an anomaly in the sport. Sorry, but that’s not the case. The anomaly was the Hoosiers being the only school like that.
Major imbalance in leagues now, which comes when they have 16 teams and eight and nine-game schedules, is going to lead to lots of teams vying for 11-1 at the end of the year. We just mentioned UT’s schedule. Well, the Missouri Tigers have an even worse slate.
Mizzou doesn’t have one road game against a team that lost fewer than six games last year, and they don’t play any games against teams that reached the CFP. Only two teams they play, the Alabama Crimson Tide and South Carolina Gamecocks, finished last year in the top 25. Both are at home.
It’s very easy to see Eli Drinkwitz’s team going 11-1 with that easy slate. What happens, then, if Tennessee loses two of three to Alabama, Florida and Georgia? If the committee doesn’t deviate from last year’s criteria, then Mizzou all of a sudden gets in over the Vols.
Moving from the SEC to the Big Ten, there are a few Indianas this year. The Illinois Fighting Illinis, Nebraska Cornhuskers and Michigan Wolverines all have clear paths to 11-1, and that doesn’t count what the Ohio State Buckeyes, Oregon Ducks and Penn State Nittany Lions can do. You can see threee 11-1 teams and three 10-2 teams among them.
Simply put, we’re forgetting just how easily Tennessee could have missed last year’s CFP at 10-2. They may not be so lucky this year, and when you factor in how they looked in their inaugural game at the Ohio State Buckeyes, the committee may even have a greater bias against them.
As a result, despite actually playing a harder schedule in 2025 than 2024, the Vols may have to find a way to win 11 games when they will be favorites in no more than 10 of them. That’s a tough ask, but Josh Heupel did pay Nico Iamaleava $2 million.
