The controversy behind Tennessee and Alabama’s debut College Football Playoff rankings has drawn widespread criticism online since their reveals on Tuesday night. Obviously, you have Tennessee fans upset about the eight-spot discrepancy, with Alabama at No. 5 and Tennessee at No. 13 despite the head-to-head result and identical records, but you also have it coming from the media as well.

Fox Sports’ Joel Klatt and On3’s Andy Staples have been quite vocal and animated about their reactions, to give an example. But there’s another name in that group that is noteworthy.

Former Alabama quarterback and current ESPN broadcaster Greg McElroy was on the CFP Rankings reveal show on Tuesday night, but gave some of his expanded thoughts on the UT-Bama conversation on his Always College Football show. McElroy says that this one was difficult to stomach.

“One of the first real difficult ones for me to kind of stomach,” McElroy said about the Tennessee-Alabama rankings. “Because here’s my problem with Tennessee. Like, Tennessee beat Alabama head-to-head. Alabama did not look good in that game. Alabama did not move the ball with consistency in that game. Tennessee controlled the line of scrimmage in that game. I also look at Tennessee, and it’s almost like the committee is putting more of a premium on offensive efficiency numbers. Teams that play great offense have been rewarded in many cases, whereas Tennessee, they sit at 41st in offensive efficiency. It’s like, yeah, never mind the 4th-ranked defensive efficiency, can you score? And that hasn’t really been the case for Tennessee. It’s not how they’ve tried to win games.

McElroy even goes as far as saying that he would be frustrated in Tuesday’s results if he were a Tennessee fan, and explains why.

“Now, they have a couple losses: at South Carolina, you lost to Texas at home. No shame in that,” McElroy continued on to say. “And yet you lose two games by a combined six points, you sit at (No.) 13. Eight spots behind a team that you beat head-to-head. That’s a hard one for me to wrap my head around. Now, I think you can make a very strong argument on behalf of Tennessee to be a Top 10 team, and you can easily make a case they should be ahead of Alabama. So I can understand why Tennessee fans are very frustrated right now. I would be frustrated if I were them as well.”

.@GregMcElroy reacts to @Vol_Football at No. 13 in the first CFP rankings 🤯

#GBO 🟠⚪️ https://t.co/qmhEzJFRfl

— Always College Football (@AlwaysCFB) November 4, 2026

One of the most common inconsistencies that has been pointed out on social media is that head-to-head rankings only matter in some cases. This is clearly an odd way to go about things. Alabama is ranked one spot above Kentucky, which sits at No. 6 in the rankings, because the Crimson Tide handily took care of business against the Wildcats in Week 2. So if the committee is honoring the head-to-head matchup with Kentucky, how is Tennessee a full eight spots behind Alabama in the same metric?

It’s a common topic that frustrates fans when the committee goes back-and-forth between resume and head-to-head. For Kentucky and Alabama, the committee chose head-to-head, with the Tide having a worse record than the Wildcats but a Week 2 win. But for Tennessee and Alabama, they chose resume. The committee values Alabama’s resume, which includes a win over Kamario Taylor’s Mississippi State Bulldogs, over the head-to-head loss against Tennessee. College football fans are just trying to find consistency from the committee, but it comes far too infrequently.

On the one hand, these rankings don’t matter in the long run. Every team still has four more chances to improve or dampen their records and resume. Tennessee, for instance, has two ranked games at home in their final four games. If the Vols can win out, they’re in the 12-team field. But on the other hand, the committee’s debut rankings set a baseline for how teams are viewed and graded. It’s a foundational starting point that impacts the rest of the rankings.

Either way, the Tennessee-Alabama discrepancy has certainly caused a lot of conversation online in the past 12+ hours. It’ll continue on, too.

No. 13 Tennessee (6-2) will host No. 6 Kentucky (7-1) at 6:15 p.m. ET on Saturday afternoon in a rivalry clash from Neyland Stadium. Stay tuned to Rocky Top Insider for more Tennessee Football news, notes, and coverage.