On Saturday, Tennessee football suffered its first loss of the year when it fell 44-41 in overtime to Georgia. In the resulting AP and Coaches Polls, the Vols stayed put at No. 15 in the country. In ESPN’s FPI rankings that are based on analytics, UT also stayed put, but all the way up at No. 9.
Tennessee was not jumped and did not jump any other teams in the rankings. Texas fell from No. 2 to No. 6 with Ohio State and Alabama moving up one spot and Georgia going from No. 6 to No. 4.
Behind the Vols, Michigan went up 19 spots to No. 10 and Miami went up 11 spots to No. 11. Neither was enough to catch up to Tennessee at No. 9, though.
UT’s spot is the fifth-best mark in the SEC. This is behind Alabama at No. 3, Georgia at No. 4, Texas at No. 6 and Ole Miss at No. 8. Tennessee is just behind the Rebels in FPI points, as well.
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FPI projects Tennessee to finish with a record of 8.7-3.4. The chance to win out and go 11-1, the Vols are at 2.3%. To simply win four more games and make a bowl game, UT is at 99.3%.
To win the conference, in which it now starts at an 0-1 mark, Tennessee is at 3.6%. This is the eighth-best mark in the conference.
To make the 12-team playoff, Tennessee is at 31.5%. It was hovering at around the 50/50 mark prior to the loss to the Bulldogs. FPI has the Vols at a 5.7% chance to make the national title game. To win the National Championship, Tennessee is at 2.6%.
