Minutes after Tennessee State upset No. 11 Southeast Missouri State 28-21 on Saturday to win a share of the Big South/OVC championship, Tigers head coach Eddie George turned his attention to what could be a possible FCS postseason berth.
Heading into the regular season finale, TSU (9-3, 6-2) was firmly planted on the postseason bubble. Its win, which came with a regular season conference title, has the Tigers in a position to leap into the competitive 24-team FCS field.
But that won’t be known until the playoff selection show to be broadcast at 12:30 p.m. EST on Sunday on ESPNU.
The Tigers will have to hope the selection committee looks favorably at it winning seven of its last eight games to end the regular season, including a victory over an FCS playoff team, is enough to earn an at-large bid.
“I guess I have to politic (for a playoff berth), right?” George said to the media after the game. “The three losses that we suffered were against the other two co-champions UT Martin and Tennessee Tech. Both games we could have won with a play or two here or there. The only game that we got exposed was early in the season against North Dakota State, which was the No. 1 team in the country.”
The moment.#RoarCity x #GUTS pic.twitter.com/pVASMvCsH8
— Tennessee State Football (@TSUTigersFB) November 24, 2024
Looking ahead to FCS playoff projections, it seems—at least to the prognosticators—that TSU should be part of the field.
In the latest playoff bracket posted by The Analyst, Tennessee State is in the field projected to play Richmond. Hero Sports, in its FCS playoff predictions, has TSU among the “Last 4 In” along with Northern Arizona, New Hampshire, and Southern Utah.
Whatever the outcome is on Sunday, George said he is proud of the season his Tigers had and the accomplishments it achieved.
“This is our first time going through this, and if we’re worthy of playing in the postseason, we’ll play,” George said. “If we don’t, we’ll say we learned from it and say, ‘Next year, we’ve got to win it outright. We’ve got to make it definitive.’ We want to play next week. Our goal was to win a championship in some form or fashion.”
