The Tennessee Volunteers were on a bye last weekend, but that still doesn’t mean they didn’t make progress regarding their very faint College Football Playoff hopes.
The newest rankings were revealed on
Tuesday night, and the Vols checked in at #23, up two spots.
Tennessee was the beneficiary of a couple of teams dropping out of rankings. Washington suffered a terrible loss at Wisconsin, while Memphis got handled at home by Tulane.
Interestingly enough, the Vols are no longer the top three-loss team. Iowa fell to Oregon at home 18-16, and rather than drop out of the rankings, the Hawkeyes fell just one spot from 20 to 21. The committee is showing that they’re valuing greatly close losses to good teams, as the Vols have lost heartbreakers at home to #11 Oklahoma and #5 Georgia, while Iowa has home losses to #2 Indiana and #8 Oregon. Neither team has a notable win this season.
At this point, it’s hard to see a path forward to the field for the Vols; pretty close to impossible in all likelihood. We still have three weeks of potential chaos left, but for now, it’s just about doing as best as they can to finish the season. With a shot at ending a 22-year losing streak in Gainesville before ending Vandy’s playoff hopes, there’s plenty to be interested in as the regular season approaches an end.
