Without Jauan Jennings and Marquez Callaway, we prepared ourselves for two outcomes: the instant emergence of mythical freshman wide receivers, or more opportunities for Eric Gray and Ty Chandler in the passing game. It’s hard to use the word “exciting” when those new opportunities come at the expense of no […]

1-0! Feels good! Don’t take a seven game winning streak for granted The historical benchmarks for a Tennessee team looking for success typically go, “Since 2015-16, since 2007, since 2004, since 2001, since 1998.” Seven wins in a row? Jeremy Pruitt’s Vols join 2015-16 as the only team(s) to accomplish […]

Tennessee was 1-of-11 on third down. Last year the Vols had at least four third down conversions in every game. In 2018 Tennessee was 2-of-10 against Missouri. You have to go back to the worst season, record wise, in school history in 2017, against the best competition: 1-of-12 against Georgia, […]

Two bits of good news this week: the Pac-12 is back, giving as full a meaning and purpose to our college football institutions as is available in 2020. The College Football Playoff will select from a full field, though they’ll now have the unenviable task of picking four teams from […]

Last year, before kickoff, it was, “It’s nice to play a cupcake for a change!” So lesson one: whatever we say, say it very carefully. Georgia State was supposed to be the first easy Week 1 opponent for the Vols since Butch Jones’ debut against Austin Peay in 2013. If […]

Even for a team on a six-game winning streak, little came easy for Tennessee last year. In the Vols’ four-game sweep of the SEC East’s second tier (South Carolina, Kentucky, Missouri, and Vanderbilt) – our first such sweep since 2015 – Tennessee had to come from behind in all four […]

“Less.” Let’s start there. The college football I’ve seen sounds more like its high school equivalent, but that still sounds more daunting than bubbles and empty arenas. The notion of home court advantage has been obliterated in the NBA Playoffs; the traditional road team has won 12 games in a […]

A few months ago in the uncertain haze of the pandemic, we started counting down Tennessee’s most important stories of the decade. We did numbers 10-5 before it felt more certain we’d actually get SEC football this fall. If you’ll forgive the abrupt ending, it’s no surprise the top two […]

A serious preview for serious fans. Seriously.