Combined win loss record of the teams we beat , on our way to a 10-2 regular season record.

[Voltopia]

50-70
I'm all Vol all day 365 days a year ! But these numbers seemed bad to me . For reference I decided to calculate the win loss record of teams Notre Dame beat . ND is a team I'm critical of every year for playing a weak schedule. Combined win loss record of teams ND beat this year 66-64 .
I sure hope we get to host a playoff game in Neyland stadium and I hope these numbers don't hurt us in the eyes of the selection committee. There will be a whole lot of politics being played the next two weeks .
Go Vols !!

I know Tennessee's schedule has been a little soft this year, but in all honesty, I just do not give a damn. Tennessee's 10-2, the Vols are in the expanded playoffs, there's no scenario short of apocalyptic ones where Tennessee isn't in. Soft, not soft, who cares? I sure as hell don't. Just win.

 

[VolPack22]

And out of all the teams currently in the field (I’ll include one of either Alabama/South Carolina), only Georgia, Ohio State, and Alabama/South Carolina have a better SOS than Tennessee. These are all the teams in contention for the CFP:

Georgia 3rd
South Carolina 15th
Alabama 17th
Ohio State 26th
Tennessee 28th
Texas 32nd
Penn State 36th
Clemson 53rd
Notre Dame 57th
Oregon 60th
Indiana 65th
Iowa State 68th
Arizona State 72nd
SMU 75th
Boise State 86th
UNLV 107th

 

[VolPack22]

They probably thought not allowing to ever get a bye would "show them" but now a lot of teams prefer the home game and not.play the extra conf champ game that could hurt their seeding anyway. So ND is probably fine with it.

They probably wouldn’t win a conference championship game anyways unless they played in the Big 12 or G5. So yeah they are more than fine with it.

 

[Sudden Impact]

Bottom line: It is all about the SEC Grind. One team after another with quality talent. Vandy would give ND a handful this season. TX had a relative easy schedule. If they can figure out how to balance the schedules out then you will in most years have a 2 loss conference champion.

 

[VolPack22]

Bottom line: It is all about the SEC Grind. One team after another with quality talent. Vandy would give ND a handful this season. TX had a relative easy schedule. If they can figure out how to balance the schedules out then you will in most years have a 2 loss conference champion.

Yep, if we played a 50th ranked or worse schedule like all those other conferences then we would go undefeated or 1 loss every single year with Heupel. We have had to play a tough schedule every year and it just so happens this was the easiest one even though it’s still top 30. I don’t want to hear about our schedule because we’ve almost always had difficult schedules. Having to play Alabama and Georgia every year is as tough as it gets. His SOS every year here according to ESPN have been:

2021: 6th
2022: 7th
2023: 18th
2024: 28th
4 year average: 15th

 

[VolPack22]

Georgia is the only team with a top 25 schedule that is solidly in the playoff. That should show you there is really no incentive to scheduling tough non conference opponents. Georgia scheduling Clemson could have backfired on them had they lost and I’m sure they probably won’t agree to such games going forward with how far the committee dropped them after a second loss.

 

[hUTch2002]

Playing devils advocate , is never a popular position . Combined win loss record of all 12 of our opponents this season is 66-78 46 % , if you round up . If that is considered a good strength of schedule , then my definition of strength of schedule is way off . Our only marquee win was against a 9-3 Bama team , most would agree the worst Bama team in 15 years . I am just stating the arguments our enemies will be making behind closed doors , for the next two weeks.
I think we definitely make the 12 team playoff , but in my opinion we will be very fortunate to land a 5-8 spot , when it's all said and done .

Not all teams with the same records are equal. Take Illinois who is 9-3 and 6-3 in the big 10. There are only 3 teams
In the SEC I would say they are clearly better than and Auburn and UK aren’t far behind.

 

[hUTch2002]

And out of all the teams currently in the field (I’ll include one of either Alabama/South Carolina), only Georgia, Ohio State, and Alabama/South Carolina have a better SOS than Tennessee. These are all the teams in contention for the CFP:

Georgia 3rd
South Carolina 15th
Alabama 17th
Ohio State 26th
Tennessee 28th
Texas 32nd
Penn State 36th
Clemson 53rd
Notre Dame 57th
Oregon 60th
Indiana 65th
Iowa State 68th
Arizona State 72nd
SMU 75th
Boise State 86th
UNLV 107th

It’s funny how IU moved up like 50 spots by playing Ohio State while only dropping 10-15 for playing 1-11 Purdue, not to mention that Ohio State game losing a little luster.

 

[Stacmot]

I hate Notre Dame!!

 

[VolPack22]

Not all teams with the same records are equal. Take Illinois who is 9-3 and 6-3 in the big 10. There are only 3 teams
In the SEC I would say they are clearly better than and Auburn and UK aren’t far behind.

Illinois is basically Vanderbilt or Arkansas this season. The typical 9-3 or 8-4 Big Ten team would likely finish 7-5 or 6-6 in the SEC.

 

[volfanhill]

Our SOR is very solid.

 

[VolPack22]

It’s funny how IU moved up like 50 spots by playing Ohio State while only dropping 10-15 for playing 1-11 Purdue, not to mention that Ohio State game losing a little luster.

It’s partly because Purdue had a difficult schedule. They had to play 6 teams currently ranked in the CFP and 5 of them are ranked in the top 10. So playing them was a little less than a wash whenever you add Purdue’s schedule into the equation.

 

[VolPack22]

It’s funny how IU moved up like 50 spots by playing Ohio State while only dropping 10-15 for playing 1-11 Purdue, not to mention that Ohio State game losing a little luster.

If we didn’t play Mississippi State and played someone like South Carolina instead I’m sure ours would easily be top 15, maybe top 10 in the country.

 

[LegionnaireOfTheMiserable]

Those numbers are probably skewed by a 3 win UTEP team, 2 win Mississippi State, and 0 win Kent State. That right there is what 31 losses? If Notre Dame played in the SEC they would have 2-3 conference losses.

We have played 3 FBS teams with winning records.

 

[OrangeVolMan]

50-70
I'm all Vol all day 365 days a year ! But these numbers seemed bad to me . For reference I decided to calculate the win loss record of teams Notre Dame beat . ND is a team I'm critical of every year for playing a weak schedule. Combined win loss record of teams ND beat this year 66-64 .
I sure hope we get to host a playoff game in Neyland stadium and I hope these numbers don't hurt us in the eyes of the selection committee. There will be a whole lot of politics being played the next two weeks .
Go Vols !!

50-70
I'm all Vol all day 365 days a year ! But these numbers seemed bad to me . For reference I decided to calculate the win loss record of teams Notre Dame beat . ND is a team I'm critical of every year for playing a weak schedule. Combined win loss record of teams ND beat this year 66-64 .
I sure hope we get to host a playoff game in Neyland stadium and I hope these numbers don't hurt us in the eyes of the selection committee. There will be a whole lot of politics being played the next two weeks .
Go Vols !!

Overall records of the teams you play is a terrible stat to look at. If you play a 12-0 Oregon team and 0-12 Kent St the teams you played were 12-12. If you played 6-6 USF and 6-6 UTSA the teams you played are 12-12. Which schedule is tougher. Of course the one where you play Oregon. So not all schedules can be judged by the overall records if their opponents.

 

[LegionnaireOfTheMiserable]

The difference is the SEC is beating each other up. Notre Dame is scheduling games with a weak ACC conference.

A better comparison to me is how have TN opponents done against teams from other Power 4 conferences.

The real difference is we played the easier half of the SEC for 6 of our 8 games. 9 teams had a winning conference record. We are one, we played two of them. We played 6 of the 7 teams that didn’t have a winning conference record. We had an easy schedule.

 

[LegionnaireOfTheMiserable]

Overall records of the teams you play is a terrible stat to look at. If you play a 12-0 Oregon team and 0-12 Kent St the teams you played were 12-12. If you played 6-6 USF and 6-6 UTSA the teams you played are 12-12. Which schedule is tougher. Of course the one where you play Oregon. So not all schedules can be judged by the overall records if their opponents.

Sample sizes of 12 tend to give you a truer representation than a sample size of 2. 8 of our 11 FBS opponents went 6-6 or worse and 6 of our 8 SEC opponents didn’t have a winning SEC record. We were gifted a very favorable schedule, especially considering this was the worst Georgia team since probably Kirby’s first year and the worst Bama team since at least Saban’s first year.

 

[VolPack22]

The real difference is we played the easier half of the SEC for 6 of our 8 games. 9 teams had a winning conference record. We are one, we played two of them. We played 6 of the 7 teams that didn’t have a winning conference record. We had an easy schedule.

Easy by SEC standards. 28th ranked schedule in the country. Fourth toughest schedule in the current CFP field. You step right on out of here with that

 

[VolPack22]

Sample sizes of 12 tend to give you a truer representation than a sample size of 2. 8 of our 11 FBS opponents went 6-6 or worse and 6 of our 8 SEC opponents didn’t have a winning SEC record. We were gifted a very favorable schedule, especially considering this was the worst Georgia team since probably Kirby’s first year and the worst Bama team since at least Saban’s first year.

That Georgia team went on the road and beat the current number 2 team in the country. Nobody is elite this season. It’s wide open. You can cut your schtick and move along.

 

[volfanhill]

Sample sizes of 12 tend to give you a truer representation than a sample size of 2. 8 of our 11 FBS opponents went 6-6 or worse and 6 of our 8 SEC opponents didn’t have a winning SEC record. We were gifted a very favorable schedule, especially considering this was the worst Georgia team since probably Kirby’s first year and the worst Bama team since at least Saban’s first year.

Our SOR, which is now considered more pertinent than sos, says stop with this nonsense

 

[SockeyeVol]

T

I prefer to think of it as we broke all the other teams beyond repair

no joke. What happened to those 8 starting qbs we knocked out of games? Maybe some of em missed a few more games....

 

[VolPack22]

T

no joke. What happened to those 8 starting qbs we knocked out of games? Maybe some of em missed a few more games....

It worked out well for Florida the rest of the season. Without knocking out Mertz they wouldn’t have beaten LSU and Ole Miss and knocked them out of the playoff.

 

[thehardknoxlife]

It's a bad way to look at it. It can be skewed by a few bad teams. Just take out the three worst then give us numbers again. ND is better than people give them credit IMO. They have a pretty good defense. They're definitely a top 5 team. I actually believe. Texas, Tennessee, Notre Dame, Ohio St, and Penn St are the 5 best teams this year. Oregon, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Miami, and Georgia would be the next 5. In no order. Miami being the toss in because they have a QB that can win you a game alone. Alabama didn't make it because they have a QB that completely falls apart. Records don't mean best. If on neutral field and refs call a fair game and start recognizing what holding is Texas and Tennessee are the two best IMHO. To quote Nick Saban, "Defense travels"!

 

[hUTch2002]

If we didn’t play Mississippi State and played someone like South Carolina instead I’m sure ours would easily be top 15, maybe top 10 in the country.

Or play a .500 lower conference team instead of Kent State. We’re good though. We made it, now we just need to show we belong.

 

[TennCan]

Using straight opponent records is very misleading. You can pretty much throw out everyone's non-P5 games, because a win over an 8-4 Buffalo or 6-6 Western Michigan is no more impressive than a win over 3-9 UTEP or 0-12 Kent St and is much less impressive than a win over a 2-10 Miss St.
By this metric if a team beat Buffalo, Bowling Green, & Western Michigan vs UTEP, Kent St, Miss St. the combined records would be 21-15 vs 5-31. The former is no more impressive than the latter, despite the massive difference in record.