The Tennessee Volunteers were always going to slip some after their 31-17 loss to Georgia on Saturday night in Athens. However, their fall on Tuesday night during the updated college football playoff ranking saw them slide right out of the bracket.
Tennessee checked in at #11 in the rankings, the first team out after accounting for BYU and Boise State getting into the field as a projected conference champions.
Tennessee came in last among the two-loss SEC teams, with Alabama, Ole Miss, and Georgia coming in just above Tennessee. The Crimson Tide jumped 3 spots after defeating Mercer at home last weekend 52-7. Quite the jump for a win over a soft opponent.
But that was a ridiculous note that ESPN put on the screen that truly exacerbates the double standard between some programs. When listing the resumes of teams, Texas was shown as having “key” wins as “at Vanderbilt, at Arkansas”.
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Tennessee came in last among the two-loss SEC teams, with Alabama, Ole Miss, and Georgia coming in just above Tennessee. The Crimson Tide jumped 3 spots after defeating Mercer at home last weekend 52-7. Quite the jump for a win over a soft opponent.
But that was a ridiculous note that ESPN put on the screen that truly exacerbates the double standard between some programs. When listing the resumes of teams, Texas was shown as having “key” wins as “at Vanderbilt, at Arkansas”.
It’s that second one that’s an incredible departure from the narrative that the selection committee and the ESPN talking heads have been putting out the last couple of weeks about the supposed albatross of a loss that 19-14 defeat to the Hogs was around the necks of the Volunteers.
Committee chair Warde Manuel even admitted they talked “a lot” about the Arkansas loss as an issue for the Vols after the initial rankings release.
Vols 4-star commit is reportedly visiting one of Tennessee’s biggest SEC rivals
Tennessee came in last among the two-loss SEC teams, with Alabama, Ole Miss, and Georgia coming in just above Tennessee. The Crimson Tide jumped 3 spots after defeating Mercer at home last weekend 52-7. Quite the jump for a win over a soft opponent.
But that was a ridiculous note that ESPN put on the screen that truly exacerbates the double standard between some programs. When listing the resumes of teams, Texas was shown as having “key” wins as “at Vanderbilt, at Arkansas”.
It’s that second one that’s an incredible departure from the narrative that the selection committee and the ESPN talking heads have been putting out the last couple of weeks about the supposed albatross of a loss that 19-14 defeat to the Hogs was around the necks of the Volunteers.
Committee chair Warde Manuel even admitted they talked “a lot” about the Arkansas loss as an issue for the Vols after the initial rankings release.
“Tennessee has an impressive win over Alabama at No. 11 and wins over North Carolina State and Oklahoma, 4-1 against teams above .500,” said Manuel. “The loss at Arkansas was something that we discussed a lot.”
If Arkansas is now a “key” win for the resume, then it surely can’t be as disastrous of a loss that has been argued over the last couple of weeks. That’s a silly contradiction that’s now being used to prop up the Longhorns after having been used to discredit the Vols.
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Tennessee came in last among the two-loss SEC teams, with Alabama, Ole Miss, and Georgia coming in just above Tennessee. The Crimson Tide jumped 3 spots after defeating Mercer at home last weekend 52-7. Quite the jump for a win over a soft opponent.
But that was a ridiculous note that ESPN put on the screen that truly exacerbates the double standard between some programs. When listing the resumes of teams, Texas was shown as having “key” wins as “at Vanderbilt, at Arkansas”.
It’s that second one that’s an incredible departure from the narrative that the selection committee and the ESPN talking heads have been putting out the last couple of weeks about the supposed albatross of a loss that 19-14 defeat to the Hogs was around the necks of the Volunteers.
Committee chair Warde Manuel even admitted they talked “a lot” about the Arkansas loss as an issue for the Vols after the initial rankings release.
“Tennessee has an impressive win over Alabama at No. 11 and wins over North Carolina State and Oklahoma, 4-1 against teams above .500,” said Manuel. “The loss at Arkansas was something that we discussed a lot.”
If Arkansas is now a “key” win for the resume, then it surely can’t be as disastrous of a loss that has been argued over the last couple of weeks. That’s a silly contradiction that’s now being used to prop up the Longhorns after having been used to discredit the Vols.
Some might say that’s simply just showing the best wins on Texas’ resume and that it’s not a “good” one per se, but if that’s the case, the committee’s placement of the Longhorns at 3 is really even more baffling and indefensible.
Regardless, the Arkansas loss in Fayetteville shouldn’t have been hammered as hard as it’s been with the Vols. After all, it’s not like it was a home loss to a team with 6 losses, or a home loss to a MAC team who’s barely bowl eligible as of Tuesday.
Surely none of field has those types of losses on their resumes, right?
