Who had 6-1 Vanderbilt on their 2025 bingo card? Anyone?
Well here they are, fresh off of a pretty convincing win over LSU last weekend. The Commodores’ only blemish this season was a loss on the road to
Alabama, and everything is still on the table for this team. They’re only 2-1 in conference play with plenty left to go, but a trip to the College Football Playoff or even to Atlanta for the SEC Championship is very much on the table.
Tennessee’s path to the College Football Playoff is much more narrow. The wiggle room is gone after the loss to Alabama last weekend. The Volunteers will simply have to win out, or miss out. There’s no guarantee they’ll be in by just winning out either, but that’s a different story for a different day.
There’s a very real scenario brewing here. Vanderbilt makes the trip to Knoxville to close out the season on November 29th. Could that game be for a trip to the College Football Playoff? It’s absolutely possible. Let’s check the remaining schedules.
Tennessee remaining schedule
at Kentucky
vs. Oklahoma
BYE
vs. New Mexico State
at Florida
vs. Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt remaining schedule
vs. Missouri
at Texas
vs. Auburn
BYE
vs. Kentucky
at Tennessee
Tennessee vs. Vanderbilt for a spot in the CFP?
Obviously both sides would have to take care of business here, particularly Tennessee. The Volunteers haven’t won in The Swamp since 2003, and frankly it hasn’t mattered how bad the Gators are in a given year. They’ve just always found a way to win that game. Josh Heupel will have to get over that hump, along with taking care of business in Knoxville against his old school in Oklahoma.
Vanderbilt has two tough weeks coming up here coming off of a big win over LSU. Missouri is also for real this year and the result of this game will have a big effect both nationally and in conference. Texas is obviously down this year, but traveling to Austin will be a massive test.
For fun, let’s just assume Vandy drops one of those matchups. Let’s also assume Tennessee regroups and wins out — they should be favored in the rest of their games.
That puts hypothetical 10-2 Vanderbilt — fresh off of a summer where Diego Pavia talked non stop about Vanderbilt running the state of Tennessee — at 10-2 Tennessee in late November. More than likely, that would be a play-in game to the CFP bracket.
There’s so much left to play out here, but it doesn’t take too much imagination to see that all playing out. What an incredibly different feeling Tennessee-Vandy game that would be.
