On Saturday, Tennessee re-entered the College Football Playoff picture with its dominant 56-0 win over UTEP. The Vols needed a little help from other teams in the SEC, and they got a lot of it on top of the UTEP win.
Alabama and Ole Miss lost on Saturday, opening the door for Tennessee to go from the first team out to the No. 9 seed in the Playoffs. The Vols are ranked No. 8 in the country and are currently projected to head back to Athens to play Georgia in round one.
Despite Tennessee’s 9-2 record and prime wins over Oklahoma on the road, Florida, and Alabama, some continue to doubt the Vols’ worthiness in the CFP.
That group includes former Alabama quarterback and current ESPN analyst Greg McElroy, who says Tennessee is not a national championship contender but is in the Playoff only because of Alabama and Ole Miss’ loss.
“Is Tennessee a national championship contender at the moment? I don’t see them that way,” McElroy said on Tuesday. “But by a process of elimination, because of the way other teams have played, Tennessee went from the outside looking in to now the inside looking out — because of the loss by Bama and the loss by Ole Miss.”
What McElroy said is partially right. Did Tennessee make the top-12 because of the Bama and Mississippi loss? Yes, but that’s not why the Vols are in there. Tennessee is in the top 12 because they have proven they are a national championship contender.
Plenty of two-loss and even three-loss teams have a case for being in the top 12 but aren’t because they haven’t proven to be national championship contenders.
Teams like Clemson, Alabama, Ole Miss, Arizona State, Tulane, Iowa State, BYU, and Texas A&M are two- and three-loss teams that are on the outside looking in, meaning they are not national championship contenders right now in the committee’s eyes.
That could change and will likely change a bit over the next two weeks as we sort out conference champions, but one thing should not be in doubt. Tennessee rightfully deserves its spot in the CFP and has been one of the best teams in the country, making it a national championship contender, unlike Alabama.
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