ESPN’s Greg McElroy is one of the few voices in the national media who was somewhat high on Tennessee during the offseason.

So when McElroy unveiled his top 15 college football rankings on Always College Football ahead of Week 3, I was fully expecting to see the Vols in the No. 10 to No. 15 range.

Tennessee, however, didn’t crack McElroy’s top 15.

But somehow a Michigan team that was gifted a win at home over Western Michigan did.

Greg McElroy explains why he doesn’t have Tennessee ranked in his top 15

McElroy is still high on the Vols, he just doesn’t have Tennessee ranked because he doesn’t think they’ve played good competition yet.

“Tennessee is not in right now,” said McElroy. “Their signature win right now is a convincing win against an 0-2 Georgia Tech team. The other win was against Furman, which is an FCS school. So there’s not really a quality win there on Tennessee’s schedule just yet.

“They’re 20th right now in overall efficiency, and the schedule that they’ve played at this point is 73rd. So I am not telling you that Tennessee is not the team that they might very well be. I think they’re legit. I’m just telling you right now that we don’t know with certainty just yet. They’ll move up very quickly when they get some of those opportunities that are coming in the weeks to come.”

I think it’s far too early in the season to be arguing about rankings. I think there’s still a lot to learn about every team in the country, and we’ll all undoubtedly feel very different about each team in a couple of months.

But with that said, I think McElroy is discounting the Vols’ win over Georgia Tech a bit too much. The Yellow Jackets are a missed field goal away from being 1-1. Georgia Tech’s loss to Colorado in Week 1 at home is obviously a bad loss. But it was also Week 1 — we often see bizarre results in Week 1 (just ask Alabama about that loss to Florida State last season).

Georgia Tech might not be as bad as their record indicates

Georgia Tech head coach Brent Key wasn’t shy last week about calling his team’s performance against Colorado soft. He was quick to point out that his team didn’t play Georgia Tech’s brand of football.

Key had a different tone after the loss to Tennessee. There are still things he wants to see improve, and he’s not thrilled with the loss, but he was much happier with the style of football that Georgia Tech played against Tennessee.

Maybe Georgia Tech is better than their 0-2 record indicates.

Truthfully, the same thing that McElroy is saying about Tennessee’s schedule could be said about LSU’s schedule.

LSU destroyed a Clemson team in Baton Rouge that might be really bad (by the way, Georgia Tech beat Clemson last season). And then they beat Louisiana Tech. So why give them the benefit of the doubt? Because of Lane Kiffin? Because of the expensive roster?

But like I said, it’s far too early to be spending much time arguing over rankings. This will all be settled on the field in the coming months.