Tennessee became the latest SEC team to lose a tough game just a week after winning a big game.

The Vols dominated Alabama last week in Knoxville, but they couldn’t keep the momentum going on Saturday, falling 27-24 to South Carolina in Williams-Brice Stadium.

Tennessee entered the weekend ranked No. 11 in the AP Top 25 Poll, but the Vols aren’t expected to fall very far in the rankings despite losing to an unranked team.

CBS Sports predicts that Tennessee will be ranked No. 17 in this week’s AP Top 25, while On3 has the Volunteers at No. 16.

Why aren’t the Vols expected to fall as far as some other teams that have lost to unranked teams this season?

Tennessee’s win over Alabama obviously carries quite a bit of weight, plus Texas, the only other team the Vols have lost to this season, won a big game on Saturday night against Ole Miss.

The main reason, though, that Tennessee is only expected to fall five or six spots is because they weren’t favored to beat South Carolina. The Gamecocks were a 2.5 point favorite, so it’s hard to drop the Vols too far since what everyone expected to happen is what happened.

“Beating Alabama had the Vols firing up the rankings past a Texas team that it had lost to earlier in the season,” noted CBS Sports’ Chip Patterson. “Now at 6-2 after losing to South Carolina on a walk-off field goal, voters are going to group Tennessee in with a cluster of quality two-loss teams in the SEC. Unlike BYU, there might not be as much of a hit for the ‘loss to an unranked team’ adjustment here, since oddsmakers did have South Carolina as the narrow favorite heading into the game.”

Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter where the Vols are ranked in the top 25 right now. Tennessee has to go 4-0 in November to reach the College Football Playoff.