Warde Manuel explains why Tennessee fell behind other 2-loss SEC teams in rankings update
Published:
Warde Manuel conducted his weekly teleconference with college football media on Tuesday night following the release of the updated College Football Playoff rankings.
The selection committee had their work cut out for them this week, particularly with regards to parsing through a group of 4 SEC teams: Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss and Tennessee.
In the end, Tennessee was the odd team out, placing at No. 11 in the latest rankings. However, because 5 conference champions are guaranteed a spot in the final CFP bracket, the Vols are currently on the outside-looking-in of the Playoff race.
Manuel, who is in his first year as the CFP selection committee chair, spoke about why the Vols slotted in behind Alabama, Georgia and Ole Miss this week. Manuel cited the loss to the Bulldogs as well as an earlier defeat at Arkansas as major reasons for Tennessee’s slide. He also said Alabama’s play in recent weeks — since its loss to Tennessee — played a role in the Tide’s ranking.
“Well, one, they just had a loss to Georgia, and they had the loss at Arkansas,” Manuel said on the teleconference. “It’s really splitting hairs. They have great offense, great defense. They play hard. The committee just had a hard time. You’re talking about 4 really good teams, when you look at Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Tennessee.
“I think the committee, we debated it, as I said earlier, quite a bit as it came down to how we saw those teams. But they have beaten each other at different times. So we have to look at Alabama the last three games, particularly the two before they played Mercer, they won in dominant fashion, and we were really impressed with their win at LSU two weeks ago.”
Tennessee will close out the 2024 regular season with games against UTEP and Vanderbilt.
Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
