The Athletic has a more reasonable view than ESPN on what Tennessee needs to do to reach College Football Playoff
ESPN caused a bit of a fuss earlier this week when college football analyst Heather Dinich suggested that the Tennessee Vols need to go 2-0 against Alabama and Georgia to impress the College Football Playoff committee for an at-large bid. That's quite a statement about the Vols considering they're currently 4-0. If they beat Alabama […]
ESPN caused a bit of a fuss earlier this week when college football analyst Heather Dinich suggested that the Tennessee Vols need to go 2-0 against Alabama and Georgia to impress the College Football Playoff committee for an at-large bid.
That's quite a statement about the Vols considering they're currently 4-0. If they beat Alabama and Georgia, they'll almost certainly be playing in the SEC Championship game. An at-large bid would be automatic at that point.
The Athletic's Seth Emerson has a much different view of what Tennessee needs to do the rest of the season to get an at-large bid.
Emerson actually thinks the Vols could lose to Alabama AND Georgia and still have a good chance to reach the 12-team playoff with a 10-2 record.
From The Athletic: Arguably, Tennessee can just be competitive against Alabama and Georgia, then avoid stumbling in the other games and feel good about its chances. But that might be leaving too much to chance, especially if there don’t end up being many quality wins among the 10. The eye test figures to matter, and if Tennessee keeps rolling over teams, 10-2 should be good enough.
Tennessee is obviously hoping to beat both of those teams. In fact, that's their expectation under Josh Heupel.
But even if they somehow drop both of those games (Alabama and Georgia have good teams, too), it seems like the Vols should be in a good position to still reach the playoff.
Of course, that's assuming that Tennessee takes care of business in other key games, such as this weekend's matchup against the Arkansas Razorbacks.
