It’s all about the college football playoff, which is good news for the Tennessee Volunteers. Undefeated at 8-0 and boasting wins over No. 17 Pitt, No. 20 Florida, No. 25 LSU, No. 3 Alabama and No. 19 Kentucky, the Volunteers find themselves ranked No. 1 overall in the College Football Playoff’s initial Top 25.
Rounding out the top four playoff teams as of now are No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 Georgia, and No. 4 Clemson — all boasting 8-0 records.
Even the casual football fan would recognize that outside of Tennessee, the top four is basically a list of college football royalty ever since the CFP began. In fact, the Top 10 as a whole is full of blue-chip programs.
Michigan (8-0) is No. 5, Alabama (7-1) is No. 6, TCU (8-0) is No. 7, Oregon (7-1) is No. 8, USC (7-1) is No. 9, and LSU (6-2) rounds out the Top 10.
Outside of Tennessee and perhaps TCU, that’s a list of the who’s who in college football for most of recent memory.
And to that end, good for the Volunteers.
“We talked about this earlier in the week, but we didn’t know where we’d be ranked,” Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel said on ESPN. “At the end of the day, one thing we’ve tried to do here is enjoy the journey.
“We’ve continued to build our roster, and really believe in where we’re going. We are continuing to get better over the course of the season.”
As fate would have it, Tennessee’s first chance to defend its No. 1 ranking will be this weekend against another CFP team, the No. 3 UGA Bulldogs.
