SEC Football: The potential playoff implications of Georgia-Tennessee
How will this game impact both teams’ chances of making the college football playoff? Will the loser of this game still have a good chance to make the playoff? Does the winner of this game have to win the SEC Football title game to make the playoff?
The Georgia Bulldogs face off against Tennessee in an SEC Football matchup between the best team in the country and the second-best team (or third best team in the country according to CFP poll). This is shaping up to be a classic. While Georgia is the favorite to win this matchup, this will be a good game to watch.
This will be a battle between the best offense in the country and the best defense in the country. While defense always beats offense, Georgia looked shaky going into this game with close games against Florida, Kent State, Auburn, and a near loss against 4-win Missouri. On the other hand, Tennessee’s offense looks electric, with the offense having not slowed down at any time this year.
No matter who wins this one, this game will have massive implications for the playoff. In a year where we have a lot of resume-worthy teams, it might be the case that the loser of this game gets left out, even if they win out the rest of the regular season.
First, we have to state the obvious. Assuming the winner of this game wins the SEC Football title game (and wins out), the path gets a lot easier. At that point, Alabama would be out of the playoff race (all the other SEC west teams have been pretty much eliminated at this point).
Assuming we get a Michigan/Ohio State undefeated big ten champ, Clemson undefeated ACC champ, TCU undefeated Big 12 champ, and SEC and SEC EAST undefeated champ, that’s four spots already. It gets a lot harder when you have to add another team to the conversation, rather than just five spots for four. Therefore, the loser of this game should be rooting for the winner to win out and win the SEC Football title game.
Additionally, if Georgia wins this game rather than Tennessee, I think Vols’ fans should root for Utah to beat Oregon in week 12 (the only legitimate team that could beat Oregon at this point in the schedule, not counting the conference title).
If Tennessee wins this game rather than Georgia, I do think the Bulldogs should be rooting for Oregon to win the Pac-12, therefore they have a dominant win against the power 5 champ. Additionally, it does allow Georiga to have an argument to be in the playoff over Oregon because they have the head-to-head victory.
I am not necessarily super concerned about the PAC-12 champ having a better chance to be in the playoff than the loser of Tennessee-Georgia if it is not Oregon just because USC/UCLA have allowed mediocre opponents to stay around in their games way longer than they should have (See south Alabama game for UCLA and see Arizona/Stanford game for USC). Obviously, Utah would have two losses if they ended up winning the Pac-12, which would put them behind the loser of the Vols-Bulldogs (assuming both teams win out after this game).
Conclusion
Obviously, the road to the playoff gets a lot harder for the loser of this game. While both teams will probably end up with 11 wins and 1 loss (with their one loss coming against the best team in the country), there are just so many resume-worthy teams this year.
You are looking at a situation where the loser of this game will have to root for teams in other conferences to lose to make sure they are guaranteed a spot in the playoff. It gets hard just because the loser of this game needs two losses from the winner of this game to make the title game. Considering both teams, that’s a pretty tall order and most likely not gonna happen.
I will say that Tennessee has a better shot of still making the playoff if they lose this game just because of the Bama win, destroyed other quality opponents, and their general dominance this year.
The winner of this game will have the inside track to making the playoff. Even if they lose the title game, they still have a solid case for the playoff (But will still probably need other teams to lose to guarantee a spot). Additionally, the winner of this game will be considered the best team in the country by everyone in the sport (whatever that’s worth).
To lock up a spot in the playoff this year, it will mostly likely require any team in the country to win out. Because of this, other conferences may have easier roads to the playoff this year. Tennessee and most likely Georgia (ditto Bama, but we are not talking about them in this article) will both play two playoff-worthy teams in the regular season. While it might be a harder task to win out in this conference, this is how it is. In the SEC, IT SIMPLY MEANS MORE!!!!!!