Tennessee landed at No. 13 in the initial College Football Playoff rankings that were revealed on Tuesday night.

The Vols are eight spots behind Alabama, which landed at No. 5 despite having the same record as Tennessee and despite losing to the Vols by 16 points in Knoxville a couple of weeks ago.

Most analysts were shocked to see Alabama ranked that much higher than Tennessee. The assumption was that Bama would come in maybe one or two spots ahead of the Vols. That still would’ve been tough for Tennessee fans to swallow given the head-to-head result between the two programs, but it would’ve made more sense than ranking the Crimson Tide eight spots ahead of a Tennessee team with a similar resumé.

One reason why the College Football Playoff committee ranked Alabama so high is because they’re giving the Crimson Tide credit for beating a full-strength Mississippi State team (before quarterback Kamario Taylor got hurt).

“I think many forget that [Alabama] went on the road and beat Mississippi State when Mississippi State was undefeated and at full strength,” said committee chairman Hunter Yurachek on ESPN after the rankings were revealed. “And we really valued that as a strong win for Alabama back there in the early part of the season when Mississippi State had that quarterback, Kamario Taylor, that was very good, and Mississippi State was on a roll at that time.”

Another reason why Alabama is ranked higher, and this isn’t something that the committee is being as vocal about, is because the Crimson Tide are essentially getting a pass for their loss to Tennessee.

The narrative is that Alabama was so beat up after a physical game against Georgia that they were themselves against the Vols (the same narrative applies to Georgia’s loss to Auburn, which happened the same day Tennessee beat Alabama).

“I wasn’t surprised that Georgia lost the week after (beating Bama),” said ESPN’s Joey Galloway on Kirk Herbstreit’s YouTube channel on Tuesday night. “I thought that was the hardest hitting football game I’d seen all season with Georgia and Alabama. I didn’t know if either team could recover from that. And as you can see with how it played out, neither team did.”

“That’s fair,” added Herbstreit.

ESPN’s Greg McElroy made a similar comment during the College Football Playoff rankings reveal show.

“Maybe that’s why Bama is getting the benefit of the doubt with how they came off the Georgia game and lost to Tennessee,” said McElroy. “Maybe that’s what’s factoring in here. These coaches in the room are saying, ‘Hey, these teams are beat up after a tough game.'”

If that’s what’s going on, then it’s a bunch of nonsense, and it’s not fair to Tennessee.

I mean, you could say the same thing about Tennessee’s loss to South Carolina the week after a physical game against Alabama, right? I don’t think the committee can start giving passes to teams because they played a physical football game the week before. That’s too subjective.

According to the rankings, the Vols’ win over Alabama is one of the most impressive wins of the season (only two wins would be more impressive based on rankings: Auburn over Georgia and Ohio State over Indiana).

But Tennessee sure didn’t get ranked like it owns one of the most impressive wins in the sport, and now we have a good idea of why that’s the case.

I don’t blame Vols fans if they’re feeling annoyed with the initial rankings.