Former Alabama quarterback and current SEC broadcaster Greg McElroy made a compelling case for Tennessee to be the fifth highest-ranked team in the College Football Playoffs during his post-reveal show on Tuesday night.
McElroy also gave his thoughts on a first-time decision that he saw the committee make on Tuesday, with direct ties to Tennessee’s involvement as a one-to-two loss team in playoff contention.
McElroy’s playoff ranking thoughts come from the Always College Football podcast on the ESPN and Omaha networks.
Tennessee’s Spot in the First CFB Playoff Rankings
Josh Heupel’s Tennessee Volunteers landed at No. 7 in the playoff rankings, which is good for the 8-seed in the first projected playoff picture. Before anything else, though, it’s important to note that there are still four more updates to come out each week until the final rankings are released on Sunday, Dec. 8.
Some out there might say that overreacting to the Nov. 5 CFB Playoff rankings is a waste of time as teams still have a handful of games to play this season. Those folks would be correct. Nothing from Tuesday is a guarantee for December and no one wins any awards for being a Top 12 team in the first rankings.
But as Shane Falco elegantly put it in the 2000 classic The Replacements, “that just wouldn’t be our style.”
Perhaps no other sporting fanbase enjoys reacting to the minutia more than college football fans. Greg McElroy included.
Tennessee’s No. 7 ranking is behind No. 5 Texas and No. 6 Penn State as all three teams have a 7-1 record heading into Week 11.
Let’s do a brief resume comparison before looking at McElroy’s case. Tennessee has a win over now-No. 11 Alabama and a loss to unranked Arkansas. Penn State does not have a win over a currently ranked Top 25 team and lost to now-No. 2 Ohio State on Nov. 2 in Happy Valley. Texas has wins over Michigan, Oklahoma, and Vanderbilt, but none of those three teams are in the CFP Playoff Top 25 rankings. Texas also has a loss to now No. 3 Georgia.
Tennessee’s loss to Arkansas is clearly the “worst” out of the three. But Tennessee’s win over Alabama is far and away better than either Penn State or Texas’s best wins. Yet, according to the selection committee on Saturday night, Tennessee lands behind both Texas and Penn State despite those things.
McElroy’s Case for Tennessee
No one on ESPN’s Playoff Reveal show made a big stink about Tennessee being behind Texas and Penn State in their immediate reactions, but McElroy did tackle the subject on his post-reveal Always College Football podcast. McElroy’s podcast, by the way, is produced by none other than RTI’s Jack Foster.
McElroy began the segment by laying out the exact resumes that were just previously mentioned.
“So, in my opinion, those three teams – Texas, Tennessee, Penn State – all have solid resumes but far from elite resumes,” McElroy said. “Penn State and Texas don’t have a Top 25 win. Tennessee has one, and that would be against Alabama, which is why I think Tennessee should be ahead of both Texas and Penn State.”
Some will argue that, in the projection from Tuesday night, all three teams would be in a position to host their first-round game, so what does it matter? It also goes deeper than that. Even with teams 5-8 getting first-round home games, the quarterfinal opponent could be much different. Texas, in this scenario, would be taking on BYU. Tennessee, meanwhile, would be playing top overall seed Oregon.
All just small things to consider as the committee continues to update their rankings weekly.
McElroy Sees Change in Committee’s Thinking
The former Alabama quarterback noted a stark difference in the committee’s thinking based on putting Tennessee behind Texas and Penn State.
“So are we valuing who you lost to now?” McElroy questioned. “Because that would be new from the committee. We have not had that from previous versions of the college football committee. They don’t factor in as much who you lost to, but more, how many times you lost or what the margin of defeat might have been.”
CFP Committee Chair Warde Manuel said on the post-reveal teleconference call that Tennessee’s loss to Arkansas was something that was “discussed a lot.”
Manuel explained his reasoning for putting Penn State ahead of Tennessee on Tuesday:
“Well, Penn State lost to the No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes, and it was a game that went back and forth, and obviously a game that could have gone the other way,” Manuel said. “It was back and forth. In that, they have wins over Illinois and Southern Cal in overtime, an opening win at West Virginia, which is difficult to play. So we looked at their body of work.”
See the full segment from Greg McElroy’s Always College Football podcast below.
