The biggest debate about the College Football Playoff rankings right now centers on where Tennessee is ranked in relation to Alabama.

The two programs have the same record, and the Vols beat the Crimson Tide by 16 points in Knoxville last month, but Alabama is ranked at No. 3 and Tennessee is at No. 8.

According to College Football Playoff committee chairman Hunter Yurachek, the reason for the gap between the two programs is because Alabama has more quality wins than Tennessee.

The committee is giving Alabama a significant amount of credit for beating Mississippi State in Starkville in early October.

Yurachek basically said last week that Alabama is getting credit for beating a team they believe would be ranked right now if Mississippi State quarterback Kamario Taylor hadn’t suffered a season-ending injury.

What Yurachek failed to point out, though, is that Taylor was already injured in the Bulldogs’ loss to the Tide.

But since the committee is apparently entertaining hypothetical scenarios, it’s fair to ask why they’re not considering what would’ve happened in Tennessee’s loss to Texas had sophomore George MacIntyre started the game instead of true freshman Faizon Brandon.

Brandon, a former five-star recruit, is an elite talent, but that was the first time he’d ever been in that kind of game. Now, it’s fair to point out that MacIntyre didn’t have experience playing in SEC games either at that time. But MacIntyre had at least been in uniform and on the sideline for those games as a true freshman in 2025. For Brandon, it was the first time ever putting on a Tennessee uniform for an SEC game, and then he had to go face a Will Muschamp-led defense. That’s a tough spot for any quarterback, let alone a true freshman.

“The one ‘what if’ I keep coming back to, because everyone loves talking about it, and I’m not saying he’s an all SEC quarterback,” said ESPN’s Stanford Steve on the SVPod. “But if Tennessee starts MacIntyre, if he wins the job, and he’s the starter against Texas, Tennessee wins that game.”

Obviously, we don’t know if Tennessee actually would’ve won the Texas game with MacIntyre under center. I mean, there’s a good argument for it — Brandon just wasn’t getting rid of the ball on time when receivers flashed open — but we can’t know for sure.

Just like we can’t know what kind of team Mississippi State would be right now with Taylor healthy.

(By the way, if the committee wants to go down the “what if” road, then what if MacIntyre hands the ball to DaSaahn Brame on fourth down against South Carolina? The Vols obviously win that game…)

The committee is making all of this way more difficult than it should be. Metrics can be useful, but they don’t tell the whole story of any game. We say it all the time — each game on each Saturday is its own unique story. Maybe a team that isn’t usually consistent shows up and plays a complete game one Saturday and pulls an upset (like Auburn against Georgia). And on the flip side, winning a game against a team that doesn’t have a good record but shows up and plays well is a better win than any metric will ever say.

Alabama and Tennessee are both good teams with some blemishes. I don’t really care where they’re ranked in the top 12, I just know there shouldn’t be five spots between them.