ESPN analyst names 6 SEC teams who are on track to make the College Football Playoff after Week 7
By Sydney Hunte
Published:
The first College Football Playoff rankings of the season come out on Nov. 4, giving fans a first look at who would be in line to make the field of 12.
With seven weeks of the season gone by, though, we can make some inferences based on how a number of teams are performing.
ESPN’s Heather Dinich on Tuesday released her list of 12 teams that would make the Playoff field at the midway point of the season. Half of them are in the SEC: Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, and Texas A&M.
Out of those six, Ole Miss and Texas A&M are undefeated. LSU’s lone loss came against Ole Miss, while Georgia has fallen to Alabama. Oklahoma suffered its first loss of the season against Texas in Week 7. And Alabama has won five straight after a season-opening defeat at Florida State.
Dinich also slotted Tennessee as a team that is “on the cusp” of a potential Playoff berth.
“Offensively they’ve been elite, averaging 300 yards passing and 200 rushing per game. Defensively, they need to stop the run to make to challenge in the SEC,” she wrote.
What about Texas, which still has “work to do” even after its Red River Rivalry win in Dallas? Dinich noted that the Longhorns’ first Power 4 win and first win over a Top 25 team was “a baby step toward a return to CFP relevance.”
“If Texas can continue to put it all together against the heart of its SEC schedule, it could make a run to be one of the committee’s top two-loss teams,” she said.
Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
