The Tennessee Vols are not in the Week 14 AP or Coaches Top 25 polls, but they are No. 25 in the College Football Playoff rankings. The Volunteers finished 8-4.
Next: Bowl Projections for Vols Following Week 13
While everybody debates who the Top Six are and what each team’s chances are of making it into the College Football Playoff, Tennessee Vols football fans have something else to celebrate with the release of the Week 14 College Football Playoff rankings.
Despite barely receiving any votes in the AP or USA Today Amway Coaches’ Polls this past week, the men in orange made it to No. 25 in the Week 14 College Football Playoff rankings.
Finishing the year 8-4 with a dominant victory over the Vanderbilt Commodores may have been enough to cement their status as a Top 25 team, which everybody thought they were at the beginning of the year.
Only four other SEC teams, Alabama, Ole Miss, Florida, and LSU, were ranked ahead of the Vols. They were the second four-loss team in the ranking, behind the USC Trojans.
Despite only beating two teams all year who had a winning record, two other wins came against 5-7 teams who just missed out on a bowl game. And all four losses were within five points or went to overtime, three of which they led by at least 13 points at one point.
All of that was clearly taken into account by the selection committee.
Meanwhile, there are five teams in the AP Poll and eight teams in the Coaches Poll who are not in the Top 25 but have more votes than the Vols, so they have work to do to finish in everybody’s Top 25/
But a good bowl draw and a win to finish off 9-4 would do just that for Butch Jones’s football team.