National pundit has illogical take on Tennessee Vols' playoff chances after win over Alabama
The Tennessee Vols picked up a signature win on Saturday night, toppling the Alabama Crimson Tide 24-17 inside Neyland Stadium. The victory improved Tennessee to 6-1 (3-1) on the season and moved them squarely back into the college football playoff picture. Well, in most pundits' minds, at least. Don't count CBSSports.com's Jerry Palm among those […]
The Tennessee Vols picked up a signature win on Saturday night, toppling the Alabama Crimson Tide 24-17 inside Neyland Stadium. The victory improved Tennessee to 6-1 (3-1) on the season and moved them squarely back into the college football playoff picture.
Well, in most pundits' minds, at least. Don't count CBSSports.com's Jerry Palm among those logical thinkers.
Palm put out his college football playoff projection on Sunday, and…well, it's almost like that Tennessee-Alabama game mattered zero to him. Palm has the Tide in and the Vols out. And not only does Palm have the Tide in, he has them as the 8 seed, which means they would get to host a playoff game.
Even more baffling, Palm says it's TENNESSEE and not ALABAMA, who already has two losses, who has work left to do to get in.
Huh?
Tennessee has a far clearer path to get to 10-2 than Alabama. The Vols – with a loss to play with – host Kentucky, Mississippi State, and UTEP and go to Georgia and Vanderbilt. The Crimson Tide – with no margin for error – play Missouri, Mercer, and Auburn at home and go to LSU and Oklahoma. Now, granted, anything can happen in the SEC this year, but one of these paths is not like the other.
That all being said, it looks like Palm is projecting a 2022 situation, where Tennessee and Alabama both ended their seasons at 10-2, but the playoff committee made Tennessee 6 and Alabama 5 despite the Vols winning 52-49 over the Crimson Tide that year.
Still, Palm's projection is kind of a mess beyond that similarity for a number of reasons. He's apparently assuming Tennessee will lose to Georgia, which would put the Vols at 10-2 if they win the rest of their games. LSU and Texas A&M already have a loss each, and they play this weekend, so one of those teams will pick up loss #2, which Palm sees A&M winning. He also sees Alabama giving LSU another loss.
However, one of Texas or Texas A&M is going to end up losing late in the season (they play on November 30, two weeks after Tennessee-Georgia) and will pick up loss #2 (at best) in the process. If A&M loses, that would mean A&M's best win would be over Missouri or LSU, who are out of the field, while Tennessee has a win over Alabama, who's supposedly in the field. If Texas loses and ends up 10-2, they'd have no wins over anyone in the field, with their best wins over Michigan and Oklahoma looking very ordinary now. And there's no way the committee would want to rematch Texas A&M and Texas just a few weeks later if they could avoid it.
College football playoff predictions are an inexact science, to be somewhat fair, especially at this point with a lot of football left to play. However, there should be some semblance of logic attached to them. Clearly Palm missed that memo.
Paul Finebaum takes a dig at Tennessee Vols in aftermath of win over Alabama
The ESPN host is still thinking in the past about the two programs
