Paul Finebaum blasts SMU, Indiana as frauds, spares Tennessee

The first round of the College Football Playoff didn’t bring us very exciting action, as the games were decided by an average of more than 19 points.

And while Paul Finebaum was willing to decry the inclusion of SMU and Indiana in the playoff, he was more forgiving of Tennessee’s addition, despite it losing by one of the widest margins of the week.

“I’m not apologizing for Tennessee being in,” Finebaum said on The Matt Barrie Show.

“They didn’t have a lot of great wins, but they did beat Alabama, which was, at the time, a top five team. So let’s not get carried away.

“My question to any of you is, if not Tennessee, then who else? I mean Tennessee, to me, was in that kind of zone with Indiana that they really didn’t have a lot on their resume, but they had something.

“I don’t know really what else, I mean Tennessee just got run over… I can’t tell you that Tennessee didn’t belong there, because they at least have had something that nobody else, that Indiana and SMU did not have. They had a quality win.”

Indiana played to the closest margin of all the first round games, losing by 10 points to Notre Dame, while SMU fell by 28 points to Penn State.

Tennessee, meanwhile, left Columbus on the wrong end of a 42-17 shellacking at the hands of the Buckeyes, a 25-point deficit that was the second-biggest on the field in the opening round.

Still, the Vols’ body of work was more deserving than either the Hoosiers or Mustangs, in Finebaum’s view.

“It would have been a lot better if we had some real teams playing in the playoffs as opposed to a couple of frauds,” he said.

“That’s the disappointing part, and I know it sounds a little bit like crying over spilled milk, but the committee did a lousy job. We as college football fans paid for it Friday night and all day Saturday.