Voting challenges

I agree the committee's going to have some challenges, and this is just one example.

When Tennessee beat South Carolina, Charlie Creme reported that this moved Tennessee up one line from the four to the three, but something had to give and Georgia moved from the three to the four. Now that Georgia beat Tennessee, do they just flip back? It might end up being that simple but I can imagine that the committee will debate this.

One can argue that the Tennessee win over South Carolina is a far more significant event than the loss to Georgia. after all, South Carolina is a one seed, and has been the number one team in the nation much of the season. Beating that team is a very big deal. In contrast, losing to Georgia at Georgia was arguably a coin flip, with the teams consecutively ranked in the AP poll, and consecutively ranked in the reveal. If you consider the home-court advantage, Georgia was expected to win, and indeed Massey had them as a three-point favorite, so Tennessee over performed slightly (I know a bit of a stretch). The bump from the South Carolina win thought to be worth more than the ding from the Georgia loss.

If I'm Georgia, I'd be outraged if Tennessee stayed ahead of Georgia. "What we gotta do? We beat them. Twice. First time since 1985. We beat them at our house, we beat them in their house, what on earth do we have to do to be ranked ahead of them?

Some might argue that simply beating a team doesn't mean you deserve to be ranked ahead of them. No one's arguing that Florida State beating Louisville means Florida State should be ranked ahead of Louisville. For that matter, no one's arguing that Tennessee's win over South Carolina means they deserve to be right ahead of South Carolina. But those arguments make sense when the teams are separated by a wide margin. The loss moves the higher team down a bit, and the win moves the lower team up a bit. in many circumstances that doesn't mean they will crossover. However, it seems like it ought to if they are consecutively ranked. Tennessee might respond, "we were consecutively ranked before the South Carolina winn and there hasn't been a vote since then, so it isn't the case that we were consecutively ranked when we lost to Georgia".

The committee is one thing but we also have the AP vote today. Tennessee is 21 in the AP at the moment. Surely they expected the win over South Carolina will move them up several spots, but where does Georgia move? Does Tennessee drag them up as far as they move up? If I'm West Virginia, I might be unhappy that Tennessee, with six losses, moves ahead of West Virginia with only three, but I'll probably grudgingly accepted that a win over South Carolina is worth something. but if you move Georgia up as well, that means moving them past West Virginia, and I'm going to ask how a four loss team that was behind West Virginia is now ahead of West Virginia. Beating Tennessee isn't worth that much.

So yes, the selection committee and the AP voters have some challenges today and they extend well beyond just the placement of Georgia and Tennessee.