Week 11 College Football TV Schedule and Big Orange Rooting Guide

The orange-tinged College Football TV Schedule and Big Orange Rooting Guide is back with a gleam in its eye this week. Vols fans nearly wrote off their hopes for Atlanta after the South Carolina loss, but now that Arkansas has knocked over the most unlikely domino by giving Florida one of two losses needed (ahead of a road trip to LSU for the Gators in a couple of weeks), and now that Tennessee appears to have found its legs, here we are back to legit hopes for a trip to the SEC Championship Game. Here are the current SEC East standings:

Nobody's going to make the College Football Playoff with three losses, but positioning for bowl games does depend on how crowded the field is. So for reference, here is the current Top 25:

And with that, here is this week's TV schedule, curated for Vols fans:

Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016

Root for the underdogs here (Duke and Arizona State), as it would help thin out the herd a bit and possibly make room for the Vols toward the end of the season.

Saturday, Nov. 12, 2016

The Noon Slate

The biggest key here, obviously, is Tennessee getting the win over Kentucky. ESPN currently gives Kentucky a mere 11% chance of ruining things for Tennessee.

The next thing to watch is whether South Carolina can make Florida's later trip to LSU irrelevant by going ahead and giving them their third SEC loss, which would be wonderful for Vols fans. According to ESPN, though, there's only a 15% chance of that happening.

After that, it's just hoping for the crowd to disperse a bit, rooting for Texas over West Virginia, Indiana over Penn State, and Baylor over Oklahoma. Of the three, Texas is most likely to get it done.

The Afternoon Slate

Assuming Tennessee gets to the SEC Championship Game and that we'd rather play Auburn than Alabama, root for Auburn to do the expected to Georgia.

Oh, what to do with Virginia Tech? Normally, we'd want them to keep winning to make the Vols' earlier victory over them look better. And yet, we'd also want them to lose to thin out the herd in front of us. But here's what I'm rooting for right now, since it's actually still in play: Tennessee goes to Atlanta, plays Auburn, and wins. Meanwhile, Virginia Tech goes to the ACC Championship and beats either Clemson or Louisville. Even with three losses, an argument that Tennessee not only won the SEC but also beat three other conference champions (the other two being Appalachian State in the Sun Belt and Ohio in the MAC) has to carry some weight. It's a long shot, but all of that is still in play, so that's what I'm rooting for. Go Vols and Go Hokies.

The Evening Slate

There aren't many compelling games in the evening, but there are several positioned for upsets, most notably Ole Miss at Texas A&M and Minnesota at Nebraska. Arkansas could also get LSU. Root for Arkansas and Ole Miss to improve the SEC bowl selection pecking order for the Vols. Apart from that, I don't know that any of those other games really matter to Vols fans, but at this point I think we're all just rooting for upsets, so Go Chaos.