In this new era with an expanded College Football Playoff, everyone is truly in the race as multiple loss teams could make the Playoff. The mark everyone has established as the "cut off" is 2 losses as anything after that makes the debate between teams too hard to pick through. When a team gets to two losses, they have a tightrope to walk the rest of the season, and on Saturday we're going to see 2 College Football Playoffs meet with only one team leaving with their hopes intact.
On Saturday, Brent Venables' 18th ranked Oklahoma Sooners travel to Knoxville to take on Josh Heupel and the 14th Tennessee Volunteers. Both programs entered the season with the expectation of making the College Football Playoff and the loser will be disappointed.
How both teams reached the brink of elimination
At the start of the season, it looked like the Oklahoma Sooners may be one of the best teams in the Country as they jumped out to a 5-0 start. Holding Auburn and Michigan to a combined 30 points made this group look like one of the best defenses in the Country while John Mateer was the Heisman Trophy front runner.
John Mateer suffered a hand injury in the Auburn game which started the beginning to the Sooners slide. Mateer returned against Texas and didn't look the same giving the Sooners their first loss of the season in a 23-6 loss to Texas. After beating South Carolina, Oklahoma lost again this time as Ole Miss put up 34 points on this defense that was dominant to start the season.
It's hard to fault Tennessee for their path to 2 losses as they came against Top 5 teams in Georgia and Alabama. Against Georgia, Tennessee had a chance to win the game in regulation before missing a field goal to send the game to overtime. In the Alabama game, a pick 6 to end the first half proved to sink Tennessee, but they played far better than the scoreboard showed.
The perfect matchup for an exciting showdown
Last weekend, the Tennessee defense showed how broken it is allowing Kentucky to throw for 5 touchdowns through the air as the injuries to Jermod McCoy and Rickey Gibson have taken a toll on this unit. The Volunteers offense is scoring 45.6 points per game which ranks 2nd in the Country, but the defense ranks 113th allowing 30.9 points per game.
This may be the perfect matchup for an Oklahoma offense that has looked broken since John Mateer's injury. Before the injury, Oklahoma was scoring 31.25 points per game, but they've fallen to just 19.33 points per game since he's returned.
Predicting the winner of the Week 10 elimination game
On Saturday Night, the Oklahoma Sooners are going to go into Neyland Stadium and watch their playoff hopes slip away losing to the Volunteers. The Oklahoma defense got a ton of hype early in the season, but as of late they showed they were vulnerable against Ole Miss. Josh Heupel is a great offensive coach and he's going to gameplan his team to beat the group just like Lane Kiffin did.