Did the College Football Playoff use Tennessee to help Alabama?
The biggest debate in sports this week is whether or not the Alabama Crimson Tide deserved to be in the College Football Playoff over the Florida State Seminoles. Florida State went undefeated and won the ACC Championship game, but they became the first undefeated Power-5 champion to be left out of the playoff when Alabama, […]
The biggest debate in sports this week is whether or not the Alabama Crimson Tide deserved to be in the College Football Playoff over the Florida State Seminoles.
Florida State went undefeated and won the ACC Championship game, but they became the first undefeated Power-5 champion to be left out of the playoff when Alabama, which went 12-1 in 2023, was awarded the final playoff spot on Sunday afternoon.
The decision by the committee has ignited a massive debate around the country with many folks taking Florida State's side.
Even former Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa said during an appearance on ESPN's "ManningCast" on Monday night that he didn't think the decision was necessarily fair.
The biggest reason that Alabama was included in the playoff was because of their win against Georgia in the SEC Championship game, which is viewed by some folks as "the best win of the year".
That win against Georgia, however, wasn't the only reason the Crimson Tide made the playoff. The rest of their schedule mattered, too. And it appears that the committee may have used the Tennessee Vols to help prop up Alabama's schedule.
Outside of the win against Georgia, Alabama's best wins came against Ole Miss, LSU, and Tennessee. And it seems like the committee made Alabama's win against Tennessee look better than many felt it was at the time by ranking the Vols at No. 21 in the final playoff rankings.
While I'm sure Tennessee fans are happy to see the Vols at No. 21 in the latest rankings, most fans will also probably concede that Tennessee doesn't really deserve that ranking.
In fact, plenty of national analysts have expressed disbelief at the fact that Tennessee was ranked that high in the latest rankings.
The Vols had a solid season in 2023, finishing 8-4. But they didn't beat a single ranked team. And they lost two of their final three games by a combined 59 points.
There's an argument to be made that Tennessee shouldn't have even been ranked in the final top 25 (the Vols' best win was against either 7-5 Texas A&M at home or against 7-5 Kentucky on the road).
It's obvious that the committee was going to do whatever necessary to justify putting Alabama in over Florida State. And it seems possible, if not likely, that putting Tennessee at No. 21 was simply an effort to make Alabama's wins look better than they were really were.
Landing in the top 25 is a positive for the Vols. Even in a down year, they can sell to recruits that they weren't that far away from the top 12 (which matters since the playoff expands next season). But the fact that their ranking was used to help Alabama is a negative for Tennessee. A playoff without Georgia and Alabama would've been the best case scenario for the Vols (and the rest of the SEC) because it would've leveled the playing field a bit in the eyes of recruits.
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