Let the head scratching, the shouting matches and the playoff debates begin.
The first set of College Football Playoff rankings saw Tennessee ranked 25th overall. This comes on the heels of the Vols’ third loss of the season to a ranked opponent, a 33-27 defeat at home against Oklahoma, which found itself 12th in the rankings, a very good indication of where the Vols could have been had they won last weekend.
As it stands, the 12-team playoff would look like this:
1. Ohio State
2. Indiana
3. Texas A&M
4. Alabama
5. Georgia
6. Ole Miss
7. BYU
8. Texas Tech
9. Oregon
10. Notre Dame
11. Virginia (14)
12. Memphis, UR
The Vols’ current resume includes losses to fourth-ranked Alabama, fifth-ranked Georgia and 12th-ranked Oklahoma. While the weeks leading into the playoffs are a time to boost the resume by any means necessary, including the comparison of losses, losing to all three of the ranked teams they have played raises questions about how good Tennessee really is, and was thus reflected in the initial rankings.
With a road game against Florida and a home game against Vanderbilt left, certainly the Vols have their opportunities to boost their resume and give the committee something to think about, but so will all the teams in front of them.
Another common criticism against Tennessee this season has been the quality of its victories. The Vols’ best win this season was an overtime thriller on the road versus Mississippi State, who currently sits at 5-4, but with a lowly 1-4 SEC record. While the Bulldogs have lost multiple one-possession games to tough teams like Texas and Florida, people simply don’t care how close the games were; they just look at the record. In sum, the Vols’ best win came in a sloppy performance against an average team, and that simply will not impress the right people.
Further, one other problem exists: even if the Vols surge to 11th or 12th in the last batch of playoff rankings, they could still be the first team left out of a playoff spot.
Five of the twelve playoff bids automatically go to the five highest-ranked conference champions, which also includes the “Group of 5” conferences — the AAC, the MAC, the Sun Belt, the Mountain West and Conference USA. As it stands, the fifth-highest-ranked conference leader is Memphis, though it is unranked in the first set of playoff rankings.
Just last season, Clemson won the ACC championship, and it received an automatic berth as conference champion despite being ranked 16th in the committee’s final rankings. That, in tandem with Arizona State winning the Big 12 but being ranked 12th in the final rankings, left 11th-ranked Alabama on the outside looking in.
As it currently stands, No. 11 Texas and No. 12 Oklahoma sit as the first two teams out of a playoff spot because of the status of Virginia and Memphis holding on to automatic bids as conference leaders.
With such lingering uncertainty surrounding some of the automatic bids, the Vols seem to be a long shot to make the playoffs as it stands.
Certainly, Tennessee could catch a miracle down the stretch, as many teams in front of them still have quite tough matchups. Some teams even play each other, increasing the odds that with the right outcomes, the Vols can squeak in. But their inability to win the big game this season has put them behind, and their fate, at this point, is out of their hands.
