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Major Rankings Shenanigans After Win
I hope everyone enjoyed the last of your weekend. I know I certainly enjoyed watching our men in big orange
remind little brother that even after a down year, some things will never change. One example is Rocky Top after a Tennessee score and
the other is that natural law that states Tennessee will always be able to beat them up. For any ETSU grads, dads, or any other
variation of "Bucky the Pirate" doodads suddenly feeling hot under the collar, this isn't chest thumping, but rather family rated fun for a fan base who could use it in almost any form at this point after almost a year of nothing but misery, so lighten up, will ya?
Take it from fans who had to endure the entire 2017 season without a single conference win. It seemed like forever since we had won a game. It's like my father said to explain how long a minute really is. "Just a minute" depends entirely on which side of the bathroom door you happen to be on, at that moment. The good news for ETSU fans regarding the sting of Saturday's defeat is it's temporary. This too, shall pass - for you, too.
"Lie to Me, Baby"
Even though the Randy Sanders-coached ETSU football squad is FCS level, it was fun to see the Vols flex the strength of their football weapons for the home crowd this weekend. At least it was more pleasant than watching the quarterback poster boy for Ligandrol hulk out on us after his weather delay "snack" or his All-American wide receiver go out of bounds a few yards then illegally return to make a catch while refs did their best 3 blind mice impression instead of their jobs. Yes, it was at UT's expense. The quarterback (whose past, present, and future play was made forever questionable when found to be enhanced by banned substance use) and refs playing dumb on at least one play, were certainly not the only reasons WVU got the W, but it sure didn't hurt their cause any more than fielding a team of fifth-year seniors (or at least many more upperclassmen than Tennessee) against the youth of Tennessee in a new system under a first-year coach. Even without excuses, the Mountaineers plain whipped our posteriors. It was frustrating even if expected by maybe everyone except Vols homers like me. Even though we knew ETSU was a mismatch, we could watch to find solace in winning. We could skip the FCS part really fast to remember what it felt like to see the team win again. If it wasn't a "real" win until SEC play when the truth's exposed, the effects of battered Vol syndrome were so pronounced it felt good to see the Vols play confidently in rhythm and win instead of struggle to survive. Lie to me, baby.
Enough Reminiscing
That's enough reminiscing, but it helps explain why I enjoyed watching the game this past Saturday so much more than the previous one and serves as an adequate background for the meat and potatoes on your plate starting this next sentence. After noticing Tennessee was ranked between 64th on one rankings list to 74th in the nation on the CBS 129 rankings list following the WVU loss, I was curious about how much rankings ground was gained from the refreshing and encouraging show of honest-to-God complimentary football that was finally more than just lip service or cliche-speak (albeit against ETSU, one of the weaklings of the world of college football teams,) by Tennessee, Saturday. I did some light digging. The results revealed a less than logical outcome.
Less Than Logical
Why was it less than a logical outcome for any reason other than "more than moronic" seemed over the top?
Well, for starters, Vegas predicted Tennessee winning by 37 points as the spread. We know Tennessee won by 56 points,
so that's a performance that exceeded the best guesses of the "expert analysts" who get paid to set the line for professional
sports betting. So if the football world expected a Tennessee win over ETSU by just 6 touchdowns and a point after touchdown
(6 points per touchdown x's 6 touchdowns plus 1 Point After Touchdown = 37 points) yet in fact, Tennessee performed even better than the pundits' predictions to the tune of 9 touchdowns and a safety (9 touchdowns x's 6 points per touchdown plus 2 points for a safety = 9 x's 6 + 2 = 56 points) then why did Tennessee's ranking drop in the exact opposite direction of their performance to the point where it didn't even make sense? I mean, even if Tennessee only won by the 37 points they were expected to win by, meaning only covering the spread instead of the actual final margin of victory that tallied 19 points higher than expected, then regardless of a few anomalies around their position
in the rankings, most could logically expect Tennessee would maintain their ranking or only move in either direction by a spot or two barring some major shakeups. That wasn't what happened though. They didn't just maintain. They beat the spread, so it would be safe to expect at least a maintained ranking over the previous week - if not a decent gain in the rankings considering they won by more than most experts calculated that they should. Here's where it really begins to resemble the shape of nonsense.
Updated as of September 9th, 2018
Tennessee is ranked #92 in the "CBS 129" rankings list. This is 18 spots worse than last week
in the same rankings list source even after the 59 to 3 shellacking of ETSU Saturday and even while
allowing backups to get plenty of valuable playing time.
Source: College Football Rankings
I know whether ranked 92 or 32, it still isn't the top 25, so most likely won't care or even notice and I won't argue with them over that. I just wonder how much Tennessee would have had to win by in order to improve ranking on that list? 77 to 0 like Miami did or would that have only maintained the 74th position? Instead, as it turns out, Tennessee plummets 18 places down to a ranking of 92nd in the country - on the basis of hammering the ETSU football team by a margin of victory made up of more points than the number of years their head coach has been alive. So unless the CBS list is just a worthless rag spun to appease fans of the perennial bottom of the barrel ranked programs, there seems to be a big takeaway from the movement in the rankings after the big win in week 2. That takeaway could be summed up thusly as a lesson (or review lesson) for those creating the schedules: Scheduling a game against an FCS opponent is the equivalent of committing rankings suicide that week because you get whacked in the rankings even for beating your opponent by more than 9 touchdowns. Is that a hot take or pretty close to the truth in your view of it? If you go to the site linked above, you can see it was updated today so it's not like they failed to account for the previous day's game result when factoring it in to the new ranking that makes it appear Tennessee became worse in week 2 than in week 1 or to put it in another way, the exact opposite of all the evidence of improvement the whole team made in spades.
Up Next is... UTEP
So now that the CBS ranking algorithm has blown everyone's mind with its logic-defying powers of team strength calculation, let's take a sneak peek at the team we have to thank for next week's free fall in the team rankings whether it's a Tennessee win by 56 again or a UTEP loss by 37. Okay, okay you got me. I just wanted to keep you on your toes. Thankfully, UTEP is NOT an FCS opponent, so even though they are considered the worst FBS football team in the nation by almost everyone, they are not an FCS team, so maybe a win of the game won't look like a loss in the rankings next week once the season's second glorified scrimmage (for us) is in the bag. Try not to get a palpitation when you read what their new coach's first name is, because just like the weather delays have shown us this season, just because the first one sucks (for us) doesn't mean the second one will even though they're spelled the same way, sound the same as each other, and are the same things.
Here is why. Remember when I said UTEP is considered the worst FBS football team in the nation by almost everyone? Out of 130 teams, Athlon Sports ranked them as... *suspenseful drum roll please*...
130th (*rim shot*).
No Joke
Usually people just call a team the worst in the nation with a sense of hyperbole but don't really mean it or if they do mean it, can't back it up with a reference to a credible source. Well prepare to be amazed my Vol Nation fam and friends. This isn't the usual. Here is a link to the actual team rankings list by Athlon Sports referenced earlier which also contains a pretty decent insight into what weak areas we can prepare to target leading up to next Saturday's showdown against the mighty "Miners" or as they refer to it, "Payday, Pete" (for them).
130. UTEP
...Dana Dimel has a lot of work to do in his first year on campus...a unit that averaged only 11.8 points a game last fall. Senior quarterback Ryan Metz is expected to be pushed by junior college recruit Kai Locksley for the starting job. The Miners return only two starters on offense and must replace standout guard Will Hernandez...the quarterback battle and... a ground game that averaged less than 100 yards a game in 2017. However, there’s talent in the backfield with the return of Joshua Fields, Quardraiz Wadley and Trevyon Hughes. The defense is also in need of repair. UTEP gave up 36.8 points a game and 6.24 yards a play in 2017. Improving the rush defense is a priority after giving up 234.3 yards a contest last fall.
source: https://athlonsports.com/college-football/ranking-all-130-college-football-teams
There you have it, my beloved orange clad brothers and sisters and just as promised.
Tennessee Vols Football Rankings After Week 2 as of 9-9-18 and Next Game vs. UTEP.
Go Vols! GBO!
OVN
And now for a public service announcement campaign and a message from the Tennessee Ad Council as an initiative to reduce home field littering.
#Litter is Not Lit
#Real Fans Don't Throw Real Fans. If Vol Twitter wants to have some fun with #Litter is Not Lit everyone could replace recent negative vibes in the media w/ some good ones & could even help the environment at more places than Neyland. It's up to you!
******
*****Updated 09/10/2018: (Devo182 lost).
TL;DR = Major Rankings Shenanigans After Win
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they have lost their minds, but I have no idea how they use these numbers on theirs? They moved Georgia down as well.
