Former Vols Quarterback Has Social Media Up In Arms With SEC Playoff Take

It seems like this year specifically, the discourse around the College Football Playoff has gotten increasingly combative and hostile. Everyone wants to discredit ranked teams, their wins, and their resumes for getting into the big dance. No one is safe, but specifically, everyone's favorite low-hanging fruit, the SEC, appears to be taking the brunt of the "overrated" criticism from the angry mob on social media. We can sit here and parse through every SEC school's case individually on whether they should make the playoffs, but former Tennessee Vols quarterback, Jarrett Guarantano, decided to take things a step further and make a blanket statement that has some of the fine folks on X running hot. Really, Jarrett? ANY of them? Now, to pull the curtain back a little bit, the reason Guarantano is saying this is that his Vols have precisely two losses. It's no secret he's being a homer here, but is he right that every SEC school with two losses should make the playoffs? I'm as big of an SEC defender as they come, but this is completely out of bounds for Guarantano to say. Let's start with Tennessee. The Vols have two quality losses on their ledger in Georgia and Alabama, but they lack even one signature win that would buoy their cause. They still have Oklahoma and Vanderbilt left on their schedule, but as it stands right now, you can't make a bold claim that Tennessee should make the big dance based on their current schedule. There is a good chance Oklahoma falls out of the top-25 by the end of the year, leaving Vandy as the lone win of substance for Tennessee. Texas already has a win over Oklahoma, but much like Tennessee, that win may not hold as much weight if the Sooners can't come out of the month of November unscathed. Speaking of Oklahoma, they might be the one team with a rock-solid case for making the CFP with two defeats. The Sooners face a murderer's row of a November schedule, which, if they navigate without a misstep, could leave them with a great shot at making the field of 12. How about Missouri? The Tigers have been gifted a notoriously easy schedule by SEC standards for the last few years, and this season is nothing new, so far anyway. Much like Oklahoma, Mizzou has a really tough schedule coming up, and if they can't beat the Sooners or Texas A&M, they may have a hard time pointing to a win over a single team with a winning record (assuming South Carolina and Auburn continue their downward trend), let alone one against a signature opponent. The comments section was heated as usual, with plenty of users pushing back on Guarantano's claims. Regardless of how you feel about the SEC, a case can at least be made for a school like Oklahoma, but I think we can all see what Guarantano is doing here. Whether it's an overcorrection in response to the SEC bashing on social media these days or a thinly veiled attempt at bolstering Tennessee's playoff resume, Jarrett Guarantano might want to sit this one out. All this does is delegitimize the SEC's case at sending multiple deserving teams to the postseason. And Lord knows they don't need any more negative publicity these days.