Tennessee Drops In College Football Playoff Rankings After Missouri Loss

Josh Heupel and the Tennessee Volunteers fell five spots in the third week of the College Football Playoff rankings, as announced on ESPN on Tuesday night.

Tennessee dropped from No. 13 to No. 18 in the rankings after falling to Missouri 36-7 on Saturday night in Columbia.

The Vols’ College Football playoff ranking is their highest Week 12 ranking after landing at No. 19 in the USA Today Coaches Poll and No. 21 in the AP Top 25 poll.

After Tennessee jumped over both LSU and Missouri in the previous week’s College Football Playoff rankings, both sets of Tigers returned the favor to the Vols on Tuesday night. Tennessee lands as the sixth and final team from the SEC in the third week of the College Football Playoff rankings.

Georgia, the current No. 1 team in the AP rankings and Tennessee’s opponent this weekend in Knoxville, jumped over Ohio State to take the top spot in the College Football Playoff rankings. Alabama remained at No. 8 in the rankings after a dominant victory on the road over Kentucky this past weekend in Lexington.

That’s where things start to take a turn. Missouri is now the third highest-ranked team from the SEC after jumping up five spots to No. 9 after defeating Tennessee on Saturday. Ole Miss dropped four spots to No. 13 in the rankings after a blowout loss to Georgia in Athens over the weekend while LSU moved up four spots to No. 15 after a 52-35 win over Florida.

Tennessee then rounds out the SEC teams in the rankings at No. 18 in the poll.

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Heupel’s Vols still have one massive test left on the schedule with No. 1 Georgia coming to Neyland Stadium this Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET on CBS. Tennessee will then close out the regular season with a home game against Vanderbilt on Nov. 25 at 3:30 p.m. ET on the SEC Network.

Here’s a look at how Tennessee’s rankings have played out throughout the 2023 college football season: