The University of Tennessee has lost four football games this season. Three of the schools that beat the Volunteers are in the mix for the four-team College Football Playoff: No. 3 Alabama, No. 7 Oklahoma and No. 8 Florida. The fourth, Arkansas, is just outside The Associated Press Top 25, coming in with the 27th-most votes after it humbled LSU in Baton Rouge on Saturday.
So what?
So if the CFP were more like the NCAA men's basketball tournament - and thank goodness it isn't littered with programs who half-deserve (or worse) to be there - the Vols might be the at-large team nobody wants in its bracket.
If nothing else (and this is important in the wake of Saturday's lackluster win over North Texas), the Big Orange certainly seems on the threshold of again becoming a regular in the Top 25 for the first time since Phillip Fulmer was in his coaching heyday.
If that means the Vols are also good enough to be in the CFP mix, all the better.
But don't take my word for it. Just listen to North Texas interim coach Mike Canales after his team's 24-0 loss made UT bowl eligible with two regular-season games to play: "This is a really good football team. I know everyone says they may be a year away, (but) I tell you what; they are going to be dynamite."
It could be argued they're as few as three plays away from being dynamite this year. A touchdown instead of a field goal early in the Oklahoma game might have locked up a win in what was instead a double-overtime loss. Any number of plays could have sealed victory at Florida. And though Alabama certainly looks as if it could be the nation's best team after dominating both LSU and Mississippi State the past two weeks, the Vols did take the lead in Tuscaloosa with less than six minutes to play.
As for Arkansas, the Razorbacks hadn't won a Southeastern Conference road game in coach Bret Bielema's two-plus seasons in Fayetteville prior to beating UT in Neyland Stadium. No offense to the Hogs, who may be on a similar dynamic path to greatness, but if Tennessee had done what it should have and won at Florida the previous week, it probably would have held off Arkansas as well.
And we haven't even mentioned that Iowa hasn't lost a game since being humbled by the Vols in last season's Taxslayer.com Bowl.
The point is, UT's four losses this season should now elicit grins rather than grimaces.
Great seasons - not good, but great - would appear to be as near as next year.
With quarterback Josh Dobbs set to return for his senior season, with improved depth and experience on both the offensive and defensive lines, with another strong recruiting class sure to buy into Butch Jones' sales pitch, it's hard to imagine the Vols not making a serious challenge next fall for their first SEC East title since 2007. That's especially true because Alabama and Florida both visit Neyland in 2016.
This is not to imply UT would necessarily be the at-large team to most fear this year if it could somehow crash a playoff due to the fact that its losses are by a combined 17 points. Though North Carolina might still conceivably reach the CFP if it can win the Atlantic Coast Conference's Coastal Division - which would pit it against No. 1 Clemson in the ACC title game - it's becoming safer and safer to assume the Tar Heels will be the team the Fortunate Four would all be happy to avoid.
Merely consider that since a season-opening 17-13 loss to South Carolina, UNC has won nine straight by an average score of 45-19. And unlike some previous seasons, the Tar Heels are reportedly enrolled in real classes.
After a weekend in which Stanford and LSU eliminated themselves from the playoffs - and quite probably Baylor - UNC would seem to have as good a chance as anyone currently on the outside looking in to crash the playoff party come Dec. 6.
But this time next year, the new team in the playoff discussion just might be the same team that won the first BCS title game back in 1998.
Because come 2016, the Vols figure to be dynamite.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.