The College Football Playoff Committee released its first Top 25 poll of the season on Tuesday night. The defending national champion Georgia Bulldogs were listed as the nation’s No. 3 team.

Saturday’s opponent Tennessee came in at No. 1, followed by Ohio State at No. 2. Clemson was No. 4, followed by Alabama at No. 6.

According to CFP committee chairman Boo Corrigan, the decision to put Tennessee No. 1 came down to the teams the Vols have defeated.

"At the end of the debate, the committee voted Tennessee No. 1 because of their impressive road win at LSU and their victory over Alabama, and Alabama is a team that the committee respects highly. Ohio State has a powerful offense and a very solid defense, an impressive win last week over Penn State," he said. "Georgia has been dominant this season, which has been plain to see, in particular, the win over Oregon at the start of the season. But Tennessee's two wins against those two strong opponents really made a difference."

Knowing Kirby Smart, however, has no complaints.

As the defending national champs, Smart has not had the opportunity to play the disrespect card.

If he desires, he can now. earlier in the year he even stated, "We will not be hunted at the University of Georgia. I can promise you that."

For those upset at the committee, the Bulldogs (8-0, 5-0) would likely jump right back to No. 1 with a win over the Volunteers on Saturday at Sanford Stadium (3:30 p.m., CBS).

"I think the most important thing is as we look at this we go into every week with a clean sheet, and this is where we are after week 9, and we'll come back next Monday and be able to go through the process again and scrub and rescrub and debate and go through everything again," Corrigan said. "But our job is not to project forward on any of the teams with regards to players that may be out or those types of things. It's just to deal with the information we have to date on where we are. Again, a lot of really good teams and a lot of active conversation and debate."