College Football Playoff bracket: Can Tennessee still make it in after Georgia loss?

Georgia remains the one nut that Josh Heupel cannot find a way to crack at Tennessee. The Vols suffered their second loss of the season in bruising fashion on Saturday, watching a 17-14 lead turn into a 31-17 defeat at the hands of the Dawgs amid a raucous environment at Sanford Stadium. Nico Iamaleava and the Tennessee offense struggled yet again, failing to score a single point in the second half, while a usually ferocious Vols defense simply ran out of gas down the stretch.

In past seasons, a loss like this would more or less end Tennessee's season. With an 18-team SEC and a new 12-team College Football Playoff, however, things are more wide-open than ever before. Texas is the only conference team with fewer than two losses at the moment, and the Vols' rugged schedule means that they remain squarely in the hunt for an at-large bid at the end of the year. How many breaks does Heupel's team need to find its way into the field? Not as many as you might think.

Where will Tennessee fall in College Football Playoff rankings after loss to Georgia?

We can basically guarantee that Tennessee will be behind Oregon, Ohio State, Texas, Penn State, Indiana, Notre Dame and Miami when the new top 25 is unveiled on Tuesday night. All of those teams have one or fewer losses, and all were either ranked ahead of the Vols or just behind them prior to the Georgia loss.

From there, though, things could go in a number of directions. With Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Ole Miss and Texas A&M all sitting on two losses, plus two more one-loss teams in Boise State and SMU, there's no telling where the Vols might wind up. It seems safe to say that they'll be behind the Dawgs, but Georgia has head-to-head losses against Alabama and Ole Miss. Will Tennessee wind up behind all three of those teams? Or will the win over the Tide help keep them from falling too far?

The best-case scenario probably sees Tennessee at No. 9, behind the previously mentioned top seven and Georgia at No. 8. The worst-case scenario, however, could have them out of the field entirely, dropping all the way to No. 11 or 12 overall — still ahead of A&M, but behind the rest of the SEC logjam and on the wrong side of the bubble. The latter, frankly, seems more likely at this point, given Ole Miss' convincing win over Georgia and how much the committee has liked Alabama all year. And if it does, how might Tennessee find its way back into the field?

How Tennessee can still make the College Football Playoff

There is some good news for the Vols here: Both the ACC and Big 12 continue to cannibalize themselves, and are shaping up to be one-bid leagues. The loser of a potential conference title game between SMU and Miami would be sitting on two losses without a particularly impressive resume. The Big 12, meanwhile, seems almost guaranteed to have every non-champ suffer two or more losses after both BYU and Kansas State bit the dust on Saturday night.

Oregon, Ohio State and Penn State seem like shoo-ins barring something shocking. Indiana, however, remains a wild card: The Hoosiers are probably fine if they at least put up a respectable showing in Columbus on Saturday, but what if Ohio State rolls to a non-competitive win? Would a one-loss Indiana team that hasn't beaten anyone of note really stay in front of two-loss SEC teams with multiple big wins?

Another place Tennessee can get some help is in South Bend, where Notre Dame has been on cruise control of late. But for as good as Riley Leonard and Co. have looked in recent weeks, they've been more or less untested over that span, and they still have that Northern Illinois loss looming on the resume. Drop another game (maybe to close the season at USC?) and that defeat would almost certainly drop the Irish below all the two-loss teams from the SEC, including Tennessee.

From there, the rooting calculus is pretty simple: The Vols want Alabama to go as far as they can, making that head-to-head win look better and better, while rooting against both Georgia and Ole Miss (with a head-to-head win over the Dawgs, the Rebels are a real threat to the Vols' at-large path). If Tennessee wins out and Ole Miss loses at Florida this coming weekend, then Heupel and Co. are right back in good position to snag one of the last playoff spots.