Paul Finebaum defends Tennessee as worthy College Football Playoff team

ESPN’s Paul Finebaum defended Tennessee as a worthy team in the College Football Playoff, despite the blowout loss to Ohio State.

In addition to Indiana and SMU getting handled by Notre Dame and Penn State, Tennessee was boat raced by the Buckeyes in Columbus. However, while Finebaum called Indiana and SMU frauds, he defended the Volunteers being in the playoff.

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A deserving playoff team? Sure. But Finebaum explained the difference between Tennessee and the other two participants not from the SEC.

“I’m not apologizing for Tennessee being in, they didn’t have a lot of great wins, but they did beat Alabama, which was at the time, a top five team,” Finebaum said on The Matt Barrie Show. “So let’s not get carried away. My question to any of you, is if not Tennessee, then who else? I mean Tennessee, to me, was in that kind of zone with Indiana that they really didn’t have a lot on their resume, but they had something. I don’t know really what else, I mean Tennessee just got run over. And I think I, as somebody who does a talk show that primarily in the SEC Matt, I heard from 100 Tennessee fans this past week, and not one of them actually talked about what’s going on inside the stadium on the field. All they wanted to talk about was, you know, we’re going to invade. 

“That had nothing to do with the game. All that did was embarrass Ohio State for proving our point that Ryan Day was in more trouble than you wanted to make out to be on a Sunday morning. But again, I can’t tell you that Tennessee didn’t belong there because they at least have had something that nobody else, that Indiana and SMU did not have, they had a quality win.”

Paul Finebaum defends Tennessee in CFP

Tennessee got in with 10 wins and had a win over Alabama, which missed the playoff. Although that was Finebaum’s point to having a better win. While on paper that is true, Indiana made the playoff anyway with an 11-1 record, dominating virtually every opponent on the docket in wins.

SMU was not penalized for losing the ACC Championship Game, something the committee said would happen since it was a 13th game.

But on the field, Tennessee came out flat and was simply not up to snuff against Ohio State.

“Yeah, I don’t know. Like the preparation going into it, guys that were out there with us for the two weeks of this preparation, I thought they did a really good job, and the performance tonight doesn’t change my viewpoint of what they did on the practice field and in their preparation,” head coach Josh Heupel said postgame.

“Didn’t execute some things tonight. Got beat in some one-on-one situations out on the perimeter, also at the line of scrimmage. At the end of the day, a couple of busts and they create big plays and they got — they’re on the right side of the scoreboard and create some separation, changes the way the game is played a little bit. You combine all those things.”