Josh Heupel comments on possibility of Tennessee Vols hosting a College Football Playoff game at Neyland Stadium
The Tennessee Vols have a spot in the 12-team College Football Playoff essentially locked up thanks to their 36-23 win last weekend against the Vanderbilt Commodores. Tennessee, however, doesn't yet know who they'll be playing or whether the game will be at home or on the road. The Vols are currently in the playoff bracket […]
The Tennessee Vols have a spot in the 12-team College Football Playoff essentially locked up thanks to their 36-23 win last weekend against the Vanderbilt Commodores.
Tennessee, however, doesn't yet know who they'll be playing or whether the game will be at home or on the road.
The Vols are currently in the playoff bracket as the No. 9 seed taking on the Ohio State Buckeyes in Columbus. That matchup could change based on the results of conference championship games this weekend.
For example, if Penn State loses to Oregon in the Big 10 Championship game, it's possible that the Nittany Lions could fall below Ohio State in the rankings, but stay above Tennessee. In that scenario, the Vols would play at Penn State in the first round.
Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel joined The Rich Eisen Show this week and he was asked about the possibility of the Vols hosting a playoff game later this month.
Heupel didn't sound very hopeful about Tennessee getting a home playoff game, but he also didn't seem worried about it.
"For us as a program, those things (playoff seeding) are really out of our control," said Heupel. "Certainly we'd love to have a home game. But if you get into the playoffs, it really doesn't matter if you're not of the mindset that you're ready to go play anyone anywhere at any time — if you're not of the right mindset to have success in the bracket. We've played ourselves into a position where we'll be in [the playoff]. Don't know who the opponent will be until Sunday. But we're excited about having an opportunity to play during this postseason."
"I don't know that [hosting a playoff game] will happen," continued Heupel when asked what needs to happen for the Vols to host a playoff game. "There's a handful of games here that certainly impact what's going to happen on Sunday with the playoff bracket. I don't know if there's a scenario that actually ultimately gets us a home game with what happens this weekend. At the end of the day, we're excited that we're in. You just had the bracket up there, right now it's Ohio State. There's a lot of things that can change. We're excited…the message to our guys is good teams continue to get better throughout the course of the season and we gotta continue to get better before we get to the first round."
Heupel didn't do any politicking for a home game during his appearance with Eisen (which is refreshing…the politicking across college football right now is exhausting), but he did mention that he thinks the committee should look at a team's entire body of work over the course of the season (as opposed to being a prisoner of the moment and ranking teams based on recency bias).
It seems more likely than not that the Vols will be playing on the road in the first round — which isn't ideal considering the disadvantages that teams face when playing on the road — but winning a national championship is never going to be easy. If the Vols are truly a national championship-caliber team, then they'll find a way to get past the first round regardless of where the game is played.
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