Paul Finebaum revealed whether he’s buying Tennessee as a legitimate national championship contender after Vols’ win over Kentucky
The Tennessee Volunteers made a statement on Saturday night with their 34-6 win over the Kentucky Wildcats.
The pool of potential national championship contenders is dwindling each week, but Tennessee is still in the mix thanks to their 34-6 win over Kentucky on Saturday night in Neyland Stadium.
The Volunteers should move into the top 10 of the College Football Playoff rankings this week. With three weeks remaining, the Vols are right in the thick of the hunt.
ESPN’s Paul Finebaum, however, isn’t quite ready to go all-in on Tennessee as a legitimate national championship contender.
Finebaum thinks Tennessee’s win over Kentucky was impressive, but he also thinks the Wildcats may have been a little bit overrated.
“I felt Kentucky was overdone (overrated),” said Finebaum on The Matt Barrie Show. “And you hate to even say that, because no matter what happened last night (against the Vols), I’m still impressed with what Will Stein has done. But they don’t look like a playoff team to me.
“And Tennessee, it’s a little bit of a tricky pick to make them a national championship contender. But they’ve got the running game, they’ve got the defense. I mean, they beat a really good (Kentucky) team. This wasn’t just some fluky game, and that win over Alabama is just going to live with them now because of the dominance in that game and the fact that Alabama is going to be in the top three this week probably.”
It sounds like Finebaum is still in wait-and-see mode with Tennessee.
And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Tennessee isn’t in the College Football Playoff yet. The Vols still have to win out to lock down a spot in the playoff, so it’s probably still a bit too early to talk about Tennessee as a national championship contender. Let’s make sure they get in the tournament first.
