Holiday Bowl announcers go viral after throwing major shade at the Tennessee Vols
The Tennessee Vols caught a stray on Friday night during the Holiday Bowl showdown between Syracuse and Washington State. Late in the fourth quarter of Syracuse's 52-35 win over Washington State, Fox Sports announcers Joel Klatt and Gus Johnson took aim at Tennessee and the SEC. Klatt and Johnson, who typically call Big 10 games […]
The Tennessee Vols caught a stray on Friday night during the Holiday Bowl showdown between Syracuse and Washington State.
Late in the fourth quarter of Syracuse's 52-35 win over Washington State, Fox Sports announcers Joel Klatt and Gus Johnson took aim at Tennessee and the SEC.
Klatt and Johnson, who typically call Big 10 games for Fox, poked fun at the conversation surrounding losses by road teams in the first round of the College Football Playoff.
Some analysts (mostly from ESPN) and fans have suggested that SMU and Indiana losing in the first round proves they weren't deserving of reaching the playoff over teams like Alabama, South Carolina, and Ole Miss.
Klatt and Johnson used Tennessee's blowout loss to Ohio State in the first round (while laughing maniacally) to fire back at those analysts/fans.
“What I loved about it more than anything, SMU and Tennessee had to go play in cold weather,” said Johnson. “SEC teams finally played a game in cold weather."
“Yeah, how’d that work out for them,” responded Klatt with Johnson's aggressive laugh in the background. “I will tell you this though, I knew Ohio State was gonna run (Tennessee) out of the building when they ran out there with that fake toughness with their shirts off and started warming up. I was like oh ok, the Buckeyes got this."
Klatt wasn't wrong — Ohio State ran Tennessee out of the building, though I'm pretty sure that had more to do with the talent gap between the Vols and the Buckeyes than the weather.
And those analysts that are suggesting that other teams should've made the playoff over the teams who lost in the first round need to get over themselves. It's complete nonsense to even have that discussion. There are no rankings or seedings that will guarantee close games. That's just not how competitive sports works. You don't get the outcome you desire just because the numbers say a game should play out a certain way (that will be heartbreaking news to the metrics/analytics crowd).
We see blowouts in the NFL playoffs from time to time. And just two years ago, we saw Georgia beat TCU in the national championship game by 55 points. 55 points!
Klatt and Johnson made some good points, but I'm not sure Tennessee deserved the shade. After all, the Vols were one of the few SEC programs — from coaches to players to the athletic director — that stayed away from politicking about their playoff ranking.
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