Basillo Point about wanting Bama to lose to LSU…

[Eastknox865]

No. The committee just isn't impressed by us squeaking by average teams like Florida, Kentucky, and Oklahoma. If we were body bagging everyone it would be a different story. We would be ranked ahead of both Texas and Penn State. Our subpar offensive play is what they're punishing.

But it's OK for Georgia to squeak passed Florida and Kentucky.

 

[Dobbs 4 Heisman]

But it's OK for Georgia to squeak passed Florida and Kentucky.

Teams that have a history of being of great get the benefit of the doubt. If we want that we need to win it all.

 

[Eastknox865]

Teams that have a history of being of great get the benefit of the doubt. If we want that we need to win it all.

That's ******** period

 

[DiderotsGhost]

Sort of a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't thing' for us.

If Bama wins, then they'll put them over us if we lose to Georgia or Vandy.
If Bama loses and we lose to Georgia, then we don't have a quality win.
The one weird scenario is if we beat Georgia and then lose to Vandy, but then we might get punished for a late-season loss.

 

[gnm53108]

Our goal has always been ,and always should be , to win the SEC. Do that and everything else works itself out.

 

[WiseOlVol]

Tony Basillo made an interesting point about wanting Bama to lose to LSU.
If you have cynical view regarding the preferential treatment Bama gets and the benefits of doubt they have received in the past, you want Bama to lose.

A 10-2 Bama with a win AT LSU, AT NIGHT likely has a more impressive resume than a (hypothetical) 10-2 Tennessee, even with the head to head. We have already seen how one playoff committee uses head-to-head match-ups to pick teams; see 2022. The Bama brand still has a national media draw—more so than Tennessee, even though we are moving into the forefront—they would get in over us.

Worth a watc.

Tony B Previews MSST

A 10-2 Vols team gets in if TAMU (home) beats Texas and the Vols play @ UGA closer than did Texas in Austin (15 points).

Alabama-LSU irrelevant.

 

[Orange931]

I operate in what is. Not what should or could be. You can be idealistic all you want. I'll continue to argue based on reality.

But it’s still delusion, that’s the reality.

 

[Ned Ray McWorkher]

An LSU win is bad for Tennessee, because it would keep them in the SEC title race. Alabama is beneath us, and they won't pass us up if we don't lose. Thus, it is hard to see the logic in us wanting Alabama to lose. Must be something to do with battered balls syndrome or whatever weak sauce y'all got going on. GoVols.

 

[Ned Ray McWorkher]

A 10-2 Vols team gets in if TAMU (home) beats Texas and the Vols play @ UGA closer than did Texas in Austin (15 points).

Alabama-LSU irrelevant.

Too many if's and none of them concrete. We are the 7th seed with one loss. Another loss drops us down to around 11 or 12. That is borderline because of how the teams are selected. Us losing to UGA will be awfully hard to overcome. We'd have only one legit win. And one terrible loss.

Alabama-LSU is highly relevant to the SEC title race (which of course means the national title race). Not sure what that even means. Everyone thinking we're going to sneak into the playoff with no basis, just speculation and hope. Winning the SEC should always be the goal of an SEC team with title aspirations. Not trying to back into the playoffs..

 

[Vol524]

I always root for the Vols and whoever is playing Bama. I want the Tigers to beat the crap out of Alabama. We need to win out; what happens to the Tide doesn't matter.

 

[Halph66]

Never pull for bammer and hell at 3 loses they are out.

Exactly. But the same thing can happen with LSU. They currently only have two losses.

 

[Volador]

Man, talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place........

 

[therealitytheory]

All of this knashing of teeth would have been prevented if we had just tcb with Arky. :::sigh:::

 

[Carp]

Bama has better wins they we do and their loss to us was by 1 score on the road. So I could definitely see Bama getting a higher ranking than us, especially if they win out.

Plus, I always want Bama to lose

 

[wtmvol]

Does TB really think we need a reason to pull against Bama?

 

[KTrain]

The committee obviously doesn't value big wins as much as they did in the past, look at Texas and Penn St ranking. Bama losing is probably best for us at this point. I didn't think that before the rankings were released, now I think we always want the lower ranked team to win.

The committee values big close losses, BYU has no losses and a better resume' than Boise State but Boise is ranked higher because the close loss at Oregon. To be honest I've saw Heather Dinnich contradict herself on separate interviews its according to who she's talking about very frustrating but you have to respect her for her vast unmatched football background.

 

[Boca Vol]

I think losing Hooker WHILE getting boat-raced in the 2nd to last game of the season is why UT was left out of the playoffs in '22. IMO, it wasn't the committee using Bama bias against UT.

Similar to what happened to FSU last season. They probably "deserved" a playoff spot but the committee thought, correctly so, they weren't the same without their QB.

 

[NighthawkVol]

There’s a very simple way to think of this…

If there are only 3 SEC teams with 2 losses or less (Georgia, Texas, and Tennessee), it doesn’t matter what Tennessee’s win over Bama looks like. Why?

1) Do you think they’re going to put a 3-loss SEC team over a 2-loss Tennessee? No. Of course not. So every SEC team not named Georgia or Texas is walled off.

2) If there are only 3 SEC teams with less than 3 losses, do you think they’re going to leave 2-loss Tennessee out for a team from another conference and ONLY HAVE TWO SEC TEAMS in the CFP? Of course not. That’s laughable.

There will be at least 3 SEC teams in the CFP. Maybe 4, but at least 3. Tennessee’s best path is to be one of the top 3 options in the SEC. Therefore, Alabama, LSU, and aTm all taking a 3rd loss gets 2-loss Tennessee in, regardless of what happens in other conferences.

 

[LegionnaireOfTheMiserable]

We likely still need LSU to lose another game to make the SEC championship, even with a win over Georgia. Bama is probably their best shot at a loss, maybe Vandy. So I think we want Bama to lose one more, but they need to beat LSU

 

[gobigorange91]

Why is everyone talking about a two loss Tennessee team!? We are beating Georgia next week! This conversation doesn’t matter! Let’s gooooooooooooooooo!

 

[crucdvol]

Let’s take care of own business first and the rest will shake out. First step, beat Mississippi State in two days.

 

[Dobbs 4 Heisman]

Sort of a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't thing' for us.

If Bama wins, then they'll put them over us if we lose to Georgia or Vandy.
If Bama loses and we lose to Georgia, then we don't have a quality win.
The one weird scenario is if we beat Georgia and then lose to Vandy, but then we might get punished for a late-season loss.

There's no guarantee they rank Bama over us if we're both 10-2. That's just speculation. The playoff committee own criteria says they'll honor head to head when teams are comparable and just last year we saw them rank Texas above Alabama in large part due to Texas beating them head to head.

If Bama wins it'll only help our playoff case rather than hurt it because it would bolster our resume. How many other teams have wins over playoff teams? Stuff like that will matter if there are 3-4 two loss teams vying for 1-2 spots.

 

[Dobbs 4 Heisman]

But it’s still delusion, that’s the reality.

It's never delusional to use past events to predict the future. It's about as good as metric as there is to predict something as unpredictable as the future.

 

[Dobbs 4 Heisman]

An LSU win is bad for Tennessee, because it would keep them in the SEC title race. Alabama is beneath us, and they won't pass us up if we don't lose. Thus, it is hard to see the logic in us wanting Alabama to lose. Must be something to do with battered balls syndrome or whatever weak sauce y'all got going on. GoVols.

It's straight up lunacy to me that we have to even argue this. Just goes to show we have a very pathetic and unintelligent fanbase.

 

[LAVol1]

We’ll lose in that scenario. 2022 is absolute proof of that. Not only did we have the head to head that season, but we also destroyed their other loss (LSU) by 30+. They still ranked Bama ahead of Tennessee in the CFP rankings. And Alabama didn’t even play the 2 teams we lost to.

We need LSU and Bama both to lose. Or just win out.

We were ranked behind Bama because we lost Hooker (see what they did with FSU last year) and lost big to a weak USCe team. A narrow loss @ Ark with a close game at UGA and no way we're ranked behind Bama who we beat AND Bama had a worse loss @ Vandy (we'll destroy Vandy).