Nico Iamaleava’s availability and Tennessee’s future: 3 thoughts heading into a big college football Saturday

Maybe it’s because November has been unseasonably warm, but it doesn’t feel like we’re less than a month away from the final College Football Playoff bracket reveal. This season has flown by so fast that it’s hard to accept that it’s almost over. But it’s crunch time. Here are three thoughts I have heading into a pivotal weekend of college football.

On Nico Iamaleava and Tennessee

Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava suffered a blow to the head in the first half of the Volunteers’ win over Mississippi State last Saturday and didn’t return. He was in concussion protocol this week as Tennessee gears up for its season-defining matchup at Georgia tomorrow.

Listed as questionable heading into the game on Tennessee’s injury report released Wednesday night, I couldn’t help but wonder: would the Volunteers be better off if he didn’t play?

First, let me say the hope, of course, is that Iamaleava is healthy and able to play. This seems like a College Football Playoff elimination game for Georgia. And Tennessee would find itself in an uncomfortable spot on the bubble if it lost. In games like this, you want to see a battle of the titans, two fully-healthy squads punching back and forth with their fates in their hands. That’s what makes this sport so great.

But let’s take a closer look at Tennessee. The Volunteers come into the game with only one loss and a valuable win over Alabama on its resume. The SEC has a bunch of teams (like Georgia) with two losses in conference play battling for an opportunity to play for a league championship and automatic bid for the Playoff. But there’s going to be a feverish debate on who the other two SEC teams Playoff teams should be.

If Tennessee plays full strenght and loses, the loss to Georgia hurts more. If it plays without Iamaleava and loses, the Committee will probably take that into account during deliberations.

That’s admittedly a soft way of looking at it. Tennessee wants to win the SEC and make the CFP by beating Georgia. And frankly speaking, Tennessee, a 10-point underdog, has a real chance to win.

Right now, it seems as if Iamaleava is going to play. But when you take a look at the overall situation, is it worth playing him if he’s not 100 percent? Probably not.

Rhett Lashlee’s comments on brand bias

On Thursday, I wrote a column about the College Football Playoff Committee and its head-scratching rankings of No. 9 Miami and No. 14 SMU. They don’t make sense.

SMU coach Rhett Lashlee had an interesting comment this week on his team’s ranking and how he feels about it.

“On behalf of the ACC, I think it is interesting,” he said. “Yeah, there are normal brand biases for teams. I’m not really going to get into that. But there are conference biases. And I think it’s interesting that, you look at the ACC, we have a winning record against the Big Ten this year. We have a winning record against the Big 12 this year. We don’t have a winning record against the SEC, but we have four games left. If we win enough of those, we would have a winning record. So that’s still up in the air. It’s been competitive. To look at our league and say that we may be a one-bid league, but you look at another league that we have a winning record against and say they’re going to get four in, it doesn’t make sense.

“When other leagues beat each other up internally, they are considered a deep and solid league. When we beat up internally, we’re considered a weak league. I just want our league to get the same respect everyone else gets. I think we have at least two, probably three or four teams, that still should be very well considered for the College Football Playoff in this league. It shouldn’t be any different than the Big Ten or the Big 12.”

Everything he’s saying is fair. You want a coach to politic for his team. Realistically, I agree with him. But I also think it’s amusing.

SMU has spent decades wanting to be in a power conference. It bent over backward financially go get into the ACC, and once it arrived, it took the conference by storm. The Mustangs have yet to lose an ACC game and controls its own destiny into the College Football Playoff field. That’s everything SMU has ever wanted.

But now that they’re at this level, they’re getting a taste that simply playing in a power conference isn’t the cure-all for all of your postseason problems. Being in the ACC hasn’t automatically legitimized SMU in the way its boosters and fans thought it would. In the rankings, SMU is still being treated like a Group of 5 team.

Is that fair? No. Is it real? Yes.

Again, SMU won’t be left out if it takes care of its business. The Mustangs have games against Boston College, Virginia and California left before likely meeting Miami or Clemson in the ACC Championship Game. Four more wins, SMU is in the field.

But should Lashlee expect to still make the CFP if SMU finishes 10-2 without a conference title? Probably not.

DJ Lagway is playing

Though Florida coach Billy Napier has spent the entirety of this season on the hot seat, the Gators announced earlier this month they plan to keep him for another year. That’s a good move, as Florida gears up for revenue sharing. It could use some of that buyout money to assemble a deeper, more talented roster in the future.

But the Gators have never quit on Napier. Maybe that’s the reason he’s sticking around.

Yes, Florida got beat up by Texas last week. But it was without quarterback D.J. Lagway, who suffered a hamstring injury a a close game against Georgia the weekend prior. But tests on that injury revealed that it was a less significant injury than initially thought.

Now Lagway is back.

The former five-star prospect from Texas will play against LSU this weekend. That’s interesting for the following two reasons:

1. Lagway is going to be a star in this sport. There was some concern it could be for another team next year if Napier were dismissed, but Florida has a piece around which it can build for the future. Every start Lagway gets is an awesome opportunity to see the freshman quarterback get better.

2. LSU isn’t in a great place right now and it struggles against mobile quarterbacks. A week after getting blown off the field at home against Alabama, LSU has to travel to Gainesville. Though it’s unclear whether Florida will be able to fully unleash Lagway as a runner, this is a tough spot for LSU. What if the Tigers go to Florida and lose? What does that mean for Brian Kelly?

Lagway playing makes this one of the more interesting games of the weekend.

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