ESPN's latest College Football Playoff projection gives the Tennessee Vols a favorable path to the championship game
ESPN's latest College Football Playoff projection has the Tennessee Vols as the last team in the dance. Heather Dinich has Tennessee as the No. 12 seed which means the Vols would play on the road in the first round. That's obviously not ideal — home field advantage is going to be coveted in the playoff […]
ESPN's latest College Football Playoff projection has the Tennessee Vols as the last team in the dance.
Heather Dinich has Tennessee as the No. 12 seed which means the Vols would play on the road in the first round. That's obviously not ideal — home field advantage is going to be coveted in the playoff — but ESPN's projection actually give the Vols a favorable path to the championship game.
Dinich has Tennessee playing No. 5 Penn State in the first round. Winning in State College isn't easy, but the Nittany Lions may not be as good as their 7-0 record indicates. Penn State's best win this season is against Illinois. They also have wins against USC and Wisconsin.
Penn State is a good team, but are they an elite team? Maybe. Maybe not. But one thing that I think is certain is that playing on the road against Penn State is a better situation for the Vols than playing at Texas A&M, at Ohio State, or at Texas (those are the other three teams that ESPN/Dinich have hosting home games in the first round).
If Tennessee can get past Penn State on the road, they would then play BYU in the quarterfinals in ESPN's projection.
Playing BYU for a chance to get to the semifinals would be much easier than playing Oregon, Miami, or Georgia (the other three teams that are projected to get first round byes). ESPN has Oregon as the No. 1 seed, which means the Vols, in this scenario, would need to beat the Ducks (or Texas A&M/Indiana if there's an upset) in the semifinals to get to the national championship game.
No path is easy — especially if you have to play on the road in the first round — but a path that includes games against Penn State, BYU, and Oregon is probably as favorable as it could get for Tennessee if they don't lock down a home game in the first round.
