The Morning After: Tennessee Will Not Be In The CFP
Last night, the Gamecocks smoked the Volunteers and, man, it stung.
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Sometimes, our minds, as humans, betray us. We are hardwired to remember the negatives more than the positives. It is easier for us as humans to remember the bad memories better than the good memories. It’s a tragic flaw within our species. We remember getting laid off better than getting that promotion. We remember riding our bicycles through our neighbor’s garage door. (OK, maybe that last one only pertains to me.) Nonetheless, this flaw in our makeup can make sports fandom oftentimes unbearable.
Take the 2022 Tennessee Volunteers football team, for instance. Before the season, I predicted on my podcast that this year’s team would finish 10-2 in the regular season. That they would spit the Georgia and Alabama games and drop a dumb one late at South Carolina. The Vols were the only Power 5 team to finish in the top-10 in scoring in 2021 and not win at least ten games. With Hendon Hooker back and a strong belief in the offensive infrastructure coach Josh Heupel had put together, I didn’t see a path for this offense to finish outside the top-10 in scoring. As of this writing, Tennessee still maintains the No. 1 scoring offense in the country and should finish with double-digit victories this season.
10-2 with victories over Alabama, LSU, Kentucky, Pittsburgh, Florida and company should feel great. Find me a Tennessee fan around the country who feels great right now, though. It’s not their fault, either. Deep down, we all know that we’re going to remember the South Carolina beatdown better than the triumph over Alabama. We’re going to remember it better than the Kentucky beatdown. We’re going to remember it better than getting over the Florida hump. We’re certainly going to remember it a whole lot better than the Georgia loss. It’s hard to draw up a loss that’ll stay with Tennessee fans more, given the CFP circumstances, than what we all experienced last night at Williams-Brice Stadium.
For Tennessee football, this is probably a good thing. Coach Josh Heupel said as much in his post-game presser. He, and I’m paraphrasing here, hopes this loss stings and stays with this group. Everybody in the building has to remember the nineteenth of November. It was something that you would hear from Alabama coach Nick Saban. These guys hate to lose far more than they love to win. “I think I hate losing more than I like winning,” Saban said at SEC Media Days back in 2018. It goes back to my earlier point, our brains are hardwired to dwell on the negatives — like losing a football game you were favored by three touchdowns going in with a realistic chance at qualifying for the CFP at stake.
It’s not fair, but it’s reality. On one hand, I like that I was vindicated about my Tennessee optimism before the season. Remember, most scoffed and laughed at the possibility of Tennessee winning ten games in the regular season in 2022. Most rolled their eyes at the possibility Tennessee could beat either Alabama or Georgia. And yet, the Vols beat the Crimson Tide. That goal post still came down, dang it. I still hugged my wife in euphoric jubilation after that knuckleball kick by Chase McGrath just made it over the uprights.
And yet, here I am, feeling down about Tennessee football. It’s silly to feel down about Tennessee football. This team, even after scoring 31 points last night against South Carolina, still lead all of FBS in scoring at 46.5 points per game. That’s really cool. The Volunteers seem like they have a great chance to land five-star defensive tackle Daevin Hobbs in the 2023 class this week. Sure, the secondary is a disaster, but if you take a gander at the 2023 Tennessee recruiting class you see there is all kinds of secondary help on the way. The biggest quarterback recruit since Peyton Manning, Nico Iamaleava, will be in the building sooner rather than later. There are positives everywhere.
I think this is why it is so important to begin and end your day writing down what you’re grateful for. There is not a better way to start and end your day. That’s how you combat one of the more horrific Tennessee fan experiences of all-time. When Albus Dumbledore said, "Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light,” I think he was emphasizing the power of gratitude.
You put the loss into perspective. No team outside the blue-chip ratio has ever won the National Championship. Tennessee will not be the first. This pass rush and secondary was not going to be good enough to win a National Championship. At some point, the lack of pass rush and rotating cast of characters in the secondary had to come back to bite Tennessee. It finally did, but it just came against a team that did not score an offensive touchdown against the Gators a week prior. So it stings more.
The timing didn’t help, either. Recency-bias is a real thing that haunts sports fans all the time. If Tennessee had played South Carolina when they did last season, on October 9, or even earlier, things feel different on Rocky Top on the twentieth of November. Perhaps the best way of illustrating this is just flipping the LSU and South Carolina games this season, with the results being the exact same. In this circumstance, Tennessee just knocked LSU out of the CFP. Everybody feels different, even with the same kind of embarrassing loss at South Carolina in early October. You go into Vanderbilt Week excited about fighting to ten wins. Unfortunately for us human beings, when you lose matters a great deal.
Now, with Hendon Hooker’s status uncertain as of this writing, beating Vanderbilt isn’t certain. It is a heck of a 2023 audition for Joe Milton. The Commodores can make a bowl game with the victory. They just beat Florida and Kentucky in back-to-back weeks. Tennesse hasn’t faced this kind of adversity in the Josh Heupel era. Folks around the country are curious to see how Tennessee handles it. Tennessee fans who are wondering if it’s 2016 all over again are curious about it. Losing to South Carolina is one thing, losing to Vanderbilt in back-to-back weeks is another. That’s how jobs are lost. I haven’t a clue how Tennessee will fair on Saturday. It’s the most uncertain I’ve ever been about the team since CJH arrived.
I’m uncertain about this week, but I’m not uncertain about next month.
The secondary is depleted. Hooker might be done. Tennessee is limping towards the finish line, not skipping to it like any human would like. It is important for Tennessee football to remember what happened last night in Columbia, just like it was important for Georgia to remember what happened in between the hedges against the Gamecocks in 2019. Those Bulldogs proceeded to win six-straight and finish the season 11-2. Tennessee can finish 11-2, too. Tennessee fans have to jot those positives down, though.
The no. 1 scoring offense in the country. Undefeated at Neyland. Beating Nick Saban. Beating Florida. Watching a Heisman candidate once again at quarterback. Far more hours of happiness over despair.
Log off, Vol fans, and get out that journal. You will be glad you did.