College Football
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Who Tennessee fans should root for in the College Football Playoff race on Saturday

November is here and the College Football Playoff race will heat up as a cluster of teams vie for a spot in the expanded 12-team postseason field. Tennessee is one of those teams having compiled a 6-1 record through the first two months of the season, and the seventh-ranked Vols go into Saturday night’s matchup with rival Kentucky at Neyland Stadium with its aspirations of playing for the SEC championship and reaching the Playoff still very much on the table. While the Vols need to handle their own business against the visiting Wildcats, what happens elsewhere in college football will impact Tennessee’s standing in the Playoff race.

Tennessee is one of four one-loss teams in the SEC, and there’s four more two-loss teams in the league. Throw in what’s happened so far in the Big Ten, ACC and Big 12 and the Group of 5 conferences, and 23 teams still have a 10% chance of making the Playoff per ESPN’s Football Power Index. Tennessee’s CFP chances sit at 68% – only seven other teams have higher Playoff percentages per the FPI – going into the Kentucky game.

“You make your case by going and controlling what you control, which is your performance on Saturdays,” Vols head coach Josh Heupel said this week. “Your preparation takes you there. We’re halfway through the conference schedule. There’s a ton of football (left). If you’re worried about the end result, you’re going to make the mistakes you can’t afford on the way to the end, and for us, being present, being in the now, preparing in a great way, continuing to grow as a football team. You guys hear me say it, the players hear me say it: Good teams continue to get better. Our best football is still out in front of us. We’ve got to go chase that.”

Part of being in the Playoff race is keeping tabs on what other contenders are doing, and Tennessee fans will have all day ahead of their team’s 7:45 p.m. kickoff to see who does what. Who should the Vols and their fans be rooting for in the Playoff race? Here’s a guide for Saturday.

#4 Ohio State at #3 Penn State (Noon, FOX)

Tennessee fans should root for: Penn State

How much: Don’t go crazy, it’s only Big Ten football after all

Why: Tennessee fans have reasons to dislike both teams. There’s a general disdain for the Buckeyes anyway and Nittany Lions coach James Franklin was once winning at Vanderbilt, and from an entertainment standpoint there is good meltdown potential on both sides – the Buckeyes would have two losses before the first Playoff rankings are even released with perhaps the priciest roster in college football, which would crank the heat up on Ryan Day, and questions about Franklin’s inability to beat Ohio State (he’s 1-9 going into this game) would have Penn State fans in a tizzy. But a Penn State win helps Tennessee more, because the Nittany Lions have an easier remaining schedule and Ohio State, which still has to play upstart Indiana and rival Michigan, would be pushed closer to the brink with a second loss.

Duke at #5 Miami (Noon, ABC)

Tennessee fans should root for: Duke

How much: Do it for David Cutcliffe

Why: The ACC has no real business getting multiple teams into the Playoff, but has four teams in the mix with Miami, Clemson, Pittsburgh and SMU. The Hurricanes wouldn’t play any of them until the ACC Championship Game, which perhaps explains why their Playoff chances are the highest among all the contenders (88.8%). Let Manny Diaz, in his first season as the head coach for the 6-2 Blue Devils (who play a lot of close games) exact some revenge on the program he used to coach and we’ll see how far it drops.

#19 Ole Miss at Arkansas (Noon, ESPN)

Tennessee fans should root for: Arkansas

How much: A lot – you can still flaunt the baseball national title and show Rick Barnes’s record against John Calipari to any Arkansas fan friends you have

Why: Tennessee is big Arkansas fans down the stretch. The Hogs are an unpredictable, chaotic team, which makes them perfect for the spoiler role they could play in November because they get Ole Miss and Texas at home on the same field where they upset the Vols on the first Saturday of October. Arkansas beating Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss would kill two birds with one stone, because Tennessee’s lone loss would look better – could the Razorbacks at 6-3 sneak into the back end of the first Playoff rankings? – and it would knock the Rebels out of Playoff contention.

Stanford at NC State (Noon, ACC Network)

Tennessee fans should root for: NC State

How much: Minimal energy

Why: The Wolfpack were ranked when they were eviscerated by the Vols in Charlotte in Week 2, but NC State has done nothing but torpedo the value of the win for Tennessee since. Dave Doeren’s team is 4-4 with home losses to Wake Forest and Syracuse. But the Pack don’t have a ranked team left on the schedule, and some wins would help Tennessee’s best non-conference win look at least a little better.

VANDERBILT AT AUBURN (12:45 p.m., SEC NETWORK)

Tennessee fans should root for: Vanderbilt

How much: You don’t have to if you don’t want to

Why: The beautiful irony of the Playoff race is it will have fans rooting for their rivals. Tennessee’s best win is Alabama, so it would behoove the Vols if the Crimson Tide keep winning, but they are off before the CFP elimination game at LSU next week. Vanderbilt is on The Plains, and the thought here is the Commodores continuing to win – they have South Carolina at home and are at LSU later this month – might get them back into the top 25 (and thus another potential ranked win) ahead of the regular-season finale against the Vols in Nashville.

Maine at Oklahoma (2:30 p.m., ESPN+/SEC Network+)

Tennessee fans should root for: Oklahoma

How much: Don’t get an ESPN+ subscription by any means

Why: Like NC State, Oklahoma was ranked when Tennessee rolled into Norman and won comfortably, but the Sooners have gone south in their first season in the SEC. They’ve lost four of five with blowouts against Texas and South Carolina are 1-4 in SEC play. It would help Tennessee if Oklahoma at least got to six wins, but three ranked teams round out the schedule after this random matchup.

FLORIDA VS. #2 GEORGIA IN JACKSONVILLE (3:30 p.m., ABC)

Tennessee fans should root for: Florida

How much: Don’t get your hopes up

Why: Tennessee beat Florida, so the improving Gators upsetting Georgia would make that win look better. It would give the Bulldogs a second loss, pushing them closer to Playoff elimination with games at Ole Miss and against Tennessee remaining and also cause an hilarious meltdown among the Georgia fan base. But the most likely outcome here is Georgia wins by a lot.

Texas Tech at #11 Iowa State (3:30 p.m., ESPN)

Tennessee fans should root for: Texas Tech

How much: Meh

Why: There’s two unbeaten Big 12 teams in BYU and Iowa State, and if the Cougars and Cyclones keep winning, we’re going to get into a conversation about comparing two-loss SEC teams to one-loss Big 12 teams (presuming one loses to the other in the Big 12 Championship Game). Kansas State and Colorado, with one conference loss apiece, are lurking behind the top two, and the Wildcats go to Ames in the regular-season finale. Iowa State won at Iowa, but its second-best win per the SP+ is Baylor, which is No. 47 – five spots behind Kentucky. Texas Tech started 5-1, but has lost two in a row.

#13 Indiana at Michigan State (3:30 p.m., Peacock)

Tennessee fans should root for: Michigan State

How much: Embrace the rooting against a protagonist

Why: Indiana is one of the best stories in college football this season and the unbeaten Hoosiers have a lot of national types fawning over them … but they’ve not played a soul. Indiana’s wins – FIU, Western Illinois, UCLA, Charlotte, Maryland, Northwestern, Nebraska and Washington – have an average SP+ ranking of 76th. (The average ranking of Tennessee’s opponents: 45th.) Indiana’s SOS will improve with Michigan and Ohio State still to play even though the Wolverines aren’t very good, but an 11-1 Indiana (that doesn’t get into the Big Ten Championship) could get the nod over a two-loss SEC team. So pulling for the upset in East Lansing would be more prudent than popular.

#10 Texas A&M at South Carolina (7:30 p.m., ABC)

Tennessee fans should root for: South Carolina

How much: Only as much you can stomach seeing Shane Beamer succeed

Why: The Gamecocks are the SEC’s other spoiler team this month between this game and the regular-season finale at Clemson. Tennessee went to South Carolina in 2022 and had its Playoff hopes crushed by an infamous 63-38 loss in Columbia, but the Vols could benefit from something similar happening to red-hot Texas A&M. The Aggies have a path to the Playoff in front of them and even have some wiggle room with one loss that’s not bad (Notre Dame at home in the opener). So South Carolina handing A&M its first SEC loss would tighten the race atop the conference standings and push the Aggies to the two-loss level with games at Auburn and against Texas still to play.

Louisville at #11 Clemson (7:30 p.m., ESPN)

Tennessee fans should root for: Louisville

How much: Do it for Tamarion McDonald

Why: Clemson was a popular projected first-round opponent for Tennessee in Playoff predictions last week … for some reason. The Tigers are playing well having pummeled everyone in front of them during a current six-game winning streak, but does beating Appalachian State, NC State, Stanford, Florida State, Wake Forest and Virginia really erase getting overwhelmed in a 31-point season-opening loss to Georgia? Apparently so. If Clemson navigates a potentially tricky finish of this game (Louisville is 5-3 with seven-point losses to SMU, Notre Dame and Miami), at Virginia Tech, at Pittsburgh and South Carolina at home, then the conversation shifts. Generally, though, contenders in other conferences losing benefits the Vols.

#18 Pittsburgh at #15 SMU (8 p.m., ACC Network)

Tennessee fans should root for: Pittsburgh

How much: Don’t watch instead of the Tennessee game, obviously

Why: Pittsburgh is the unbeaten and SMU is the one-loss team, so going to the Panthers seems counterintuitive. Here’s the thought process here: The Mustangs have an easier close (Boston College, Virginia and California) and thus the higher Playoff chance (29.4%), while Pittsburgh still has to play Clemson and Louisville and thus has a lower Playoff chance (19.4%). There’s a scenario where Miami, Clemson and SMU all go 8-0 in ACC play and one of them gets left out of the ACC Championship Game via a convoluted tiebreaker procedure. Would beating Pittsburgh and Louisville be enough to get an 11-1 SMU that avoids Clemson or Miami into the Playoff? So while a Pittsburgh win enhances their Playoff case, a second loss likely eliminates SMU from the conversation altogether.

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