Kirby Smart's comments after beating Tennessee should help the Vols' playoff case
The Tennessee Vols no longer control their own destiny after a loss to the Georgia Bulldogs this past weekend. Tennessee is now among a group of playoff-caliber SEC teams that each have two losses (Georgia, Alabama, Ole Miss, and Texas A&M) The Vols, however, will likely need some help to make the 12-team playoff, depending […]
The Tennessee Vols no longer control their own destiny after a loss to the Georgia Bulldogs this past weekend.
Tennessee is now among a group of playoff-caliber SEC teams that each have two losses (Georgia, Alabama, Ole Miss, and Texas A&M)
The Vols, however, will likely need some help to make the 12-team playoff, depending on how the increasingly volatile College Football Playoff committee views Tennessee's resumé.
Georgia head coach Kirby Smart made some comments after the Bulldogs' win against the Vols on Saturday night that should actually help Tennessee's playoff case.
Smart pointed out how hard it is to win on the road in the SEC, noting the tough road environments that are created by passionate fans on a weekly basis.
"I don't know what they (the committee) look for," said Smart during his post-game interview on ESPN. "I really don't know what they look for anymore. So I would welcome anybody on that committee to come down to this league and play in this environment. It's a tough place to play."
Smart is spot on — playing on the road in the SEC is incredibly tough. It's a massive advantage for the home team.
And both of Tennessee's losses this season have come on the road during night games (at Arkansas and at Georgia).
With all the talk about strength of schedule and "bad losses" (the idea that the committee can look at a box score and determine what is a bad loss is laughably absurd and plenty of coaches agree…wins/losses are much more complex than what you see in a box score), it seems reasonable to suggest that the committee should weigh road losses much differently than home losses.
For example, the Ole Miss Rebels' home loss to the Kentucky Wildcats earlier this season is significantly worse than Tennessee's road loss to Arkansas. Not only is Kentucky a worse team than Arkansas, but the Wildcats' only SEC win this season came on the road in Oxford. The Rebels' loss to Kentucky is one of the worst losses in college football this season — it's worse than Alabama's road loss to the Vanderbilt Commodores.
If the committee has any dignity (which it doesn't appear that they do), they'll penalize Ole Miss for the loss to Kentucky and slide the Vols ahead of the Rebels in the new rankings on Tuesday night (though with that said, I think Ole Miss and Tennessee are both playoff-caliber teams who deserve to get into the tournament).
We'll see if Smart's words hold any weight — though I wouldn't count on that happening. The playoff committee hasn't done much to inspire confidence that they can adequately rank teams without their subconscious bias impacting their choices.
