But it would help Tennessee... if we're ever in the championship picture.
Remember the time Alabama and LSU played for a championship? Pffft, so much for that. We won't even have the opportunity of two SEC teams making the playoffs after today.
So yeah, the SEC not looking like a dumpster fire would have benefited the Vols if they're ever in contention to make the playoffs. If there's another SEC team in the running to make the playoffs, only one team will get to go unless everyone else outside of the top 3 has 2 losses. There can't be two undefeated SEC teams and that second SEC team will sit at home so they can take a one loss team from a conference that doesn't have anyone representing them.
Again: we're not committee members (nor are any other average fans, especially those of us online). One bowl season isn't going to ruin the conference's reputation for future selections, especially the team picked for the playoffs lost by 7 points.
I can promise you that if UT were to go 13-0, or 12-1 among a 4-5 other 1-loss teams next season, the committee isn't going to say "Sorry, they're not good enough because last year a 1-loss Alabama lost to a 1-loss Ohio State and Auburn lost in overtime to Wisconsin."
All that disappeared today were some bragging rights...some that, honestly, as a 6-6 team, we should have never been trying to actively employ in the first place.
This "back door" in off of the conference's reputation, that you seem to be suggesting and lamenting, was likely never really there to begin with - especially since you can see how the committee already showed more preference to conference champions; there also wasn't going to be - to any degree - some sort of magic scenario where a 1 or 2 loss TN would have jumped into the playoff seedings over an undefeated or 1-loss team/champion because "hot damn, the SEC is awesome and won all its bowl games and a championship!"
(Also, your "that'll never happen" scenario you used was the one that came about from so broken of a season that it caused the entire system to be reworked...that's a bad example to use here. The equivalent, in this setup, would be something like 3-4 SEC teams make a 4-team playoff one year, and even you have to admit that's a fiasco.)