It’s. Game. Day. Thanks to everyone who used the Gameday on Rocky Top Expected Win Total Machine to make their picks for the season. Heading into tonight, here’s how Tennessee fans are feeling on the year: Total Expected Wins: 6.74 Game-by-game probabilities: Bowling Green 95.1% Pittsburgh 58.4% Tennessee Tech 97.5% […]

Pandemic, month whatever, and the thing I’ve found most helpful during these crazy days still comes from March of 2020: If you want idiot optimism, of course, we have that too. We also spent a lot of time before, during, and immediately following the transition from Pruitt and Fulmer to […]

It’s back, and this time a full slate of games every week! Hey now! It’s the 2021 Gameday on Rocky Top picks contest, once again from our longtime friends at Fun Office Pools. It’s free to play – you can join our group right here. As always, the pool uses […]

All I’m saying is, if we really did give players bags of cash from McDonald’s, I feel like I could’ve been helpful in that operation. I’m intimately familiar with at least a dozen Knoxville area locations. My wife gets embarrassed when we pull up to the drive-thru and they start […]

Game week. We wanted to wait until we had a starting quarterback, officially. But being that this is, in fact, that week, let’s do this thing. You know the drill: enter the percentage chance you give Tennessee to win each game. Something closer to 100 for Bowling Green, something closer […]

Will Tennessee officially name a starter this week? Maybe. The real question: will that starter be the starter this year? We’ve looked at this before, and it’s worth repeating: in the post-Fulmer era, the only quarterbacks to take every meaningful snap in a season were Jonathan Crompton in 2009, and […]

What’s the biggest difference between what happened at Central Florida and what’s been happening at Tennessee? 40+ yard plays. A 40+ yard play is a good benchmark for a true drive-changer. A 20-30+ yard play might still lead to a punt, or down in close perhaps you were already in […]

I think one thing Josh Heupel’s tenure will spark among our fanbase is a greater view of the game by the number of possessions we’re ahead or behind. When you play at such a rapid pace, more possessions means more opportunity. We’ve already seen somewhat of a move this direction […]

Bill Connelly’s final 2021 SP+ projections dropped this week at ESPN+, one of our favorite signs of the season getting close. We love SP+ for the way it helps us look beyond a team’s record in determining its true strength, and the value it places on every snap. The easy […]

Where does Tennessee have the most room for improvement? Overall, it’s not allowing opposing quarterbacks to complete 68% of their passes, 125th of 127 teams playing football last year. Offensively, it’s third downs, where a 30.2% conversion rate ranked 119th. A close friend to third down success: red zone success. […]