Author Archives: Will Shelton

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 Josh Dobbs in 2015-16. Tyler Bray was briefly benched in the 2012 Vanderbilt game; your mileage may vary on how meaningful those snaps were. Even if you count that team on this list, you’re still looking at eight of the last twelve years when Tennessee used at least two quarterbacks.

Let’s say this team does get one guy. And let’s say that one guy stays healthy all year, and plays well enough to still be the guy in December. Let’s say QB1 is around the range we’ve seen from Josh Heupel teams before: Dillon Gabriel averaged 41.3 passes per game last year, way up from the 30.6 he averaged in 2019. McKenzie Milton averaged 31 per game before he got hurt the year before. Drew Lock was at 32.2 in 2017 and 36.2 in 2016.

So conservatively, let’s say QB1 throws it 30 times per game at Tennessee this fall. If he does that every Saturday, staying healthy and keeping his job throughout the season, and Tennessee plays in a bowl game? Those 390 passing attempts would rank fifth in career passes among Tennessee quarterbacks in the post-Fulmer era.

Maybe we’ll get excellence along the way. But first, what’s the value of simple stability?

Consider this: in Phillip Fulmer’s tenure, the Vols threw it more than 5,500 times from 1993-2008. And 85% of those passing attempts came from these guys (data via sports-reference):

• Peyton Manning 24.8%
• Casey Clausen 22.8%
• Erik Ainge 21.7%
• Tee Martin 10.6%
• Heath Shuler 5.1%

That’s three 3+ year starters, plus two years of the guy who won a natty and a year of the Heisman runner-up. That’s pretty good.

And the guys who were next – Jonathan Crompton at 4.4%, Rick Clausen at 3.6% – had their moments, even if Crompton’s came after Fulmer was gone.

In comparison, here’s the current percentage of passing attempts at Tennessee in the post-Fulmer era:

• Josh Dobbs 22.6%
• Tyler Bray 20.9%
• Jarrett Guarantano 18.3%
• Justin Worley 12.6%
• Jonathan Crompton 8.7%

That’s 83.1% of Tennessee’s passes since 2009. And only the top two – who account for less than half of what we’ve seen in the last dozen years – were long-term answers. The next two guys on this list – Matt Simms at 5.8%, Quinten Dormady at 4% – didn’t make it an entire year as a starter. And all of the non-JG options we’ve tried the last two years – Maurer, Shrout, Bailey – didn’t get or create enough opportunity for themselves to move any farther up the list.

Crompton threw it 384 times in 2009. If this year’s QB1 hits 385 – 29.6 per game in Heupel’s offense – they’d crack the top five on the career list post-Fulmer, and trail only Tyler Bray’s 451 (37.6 per game) from 2012 among single-season passing attempts since 2009.

If we get something truly great from QB1, hallelujah. But just getting something good enough to start every Saturday – and keeping it healthy – would provide stability we haven’t seen here in a very long time. To be sure, Dobbs had it, and obviously did plenty of truly great with his legs too. But QB1 doesn’t have to be Dobbs or 2012 Bray to be the most welcome sight we’ve seen at the helm in a very long time.

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 field goal range. But the 40+ territory tends to directly change the outcome.

Last year, Tennessee hit three 40+ yard plays in 10 games, good for 111th nationally. JG hit his second long completion to Jaylin Hyatt against Alabama; the Vols scored a touchdown on the next play. Harrison Bailey and Velus Jones connected for a 74-yard touchdown against Vanderbilt with the Vols up 35-17. And J.T. Shrout and Cedric Tillman turned in one against Texas A&M that, if you’re like me, you’ve already forgotten about because by that point we were trying to figure out who was getting investigated for what.

That’s three for the Vols in 10 games. In 2019, Tennessee hit 13 40+ yard plays in 13 games, 73rd nationally.

UCF, in 10 games last year, led the nation in 40+ yard plays with 24. Among teams that only played 10 games, Texas was second with 20. In 2019, UCF had 30 40+ yard plays in 13 games, trailing only Memphis (35 in 14 games).

It’s something we heard a lot about Josh Heupel’s offense when he first arrived, so much so we probably became a little numb to it. But the true numbing sensation is from the difference between what Central Florida has done, and the comparison to Tennessee.

In fact, you have to go back to 2012 to find a Tennessee offense that ranked in the Top 35 in 40+ yard plays. Via SportSource Analytics:

That’s Chaney, Bajakian, DeBord, Scott, Helton, and Chaney. And only in 2012 were the Vols truly explosive. You’ll remember the 2015 group winning nine games in spite of this statistic, leading to an off-season of, “Will they let Dobbs throw it deep?”

Consider how football has changed: in 2012, Tyler Bray and company were 15th nationally with 19 40+ yard plays, and only three teams – Baylor, Aaron Murray’s Georgia, and Chuckie Keeton’s Utah State – had more than 25 40+ yard plays. Two years earlier in 2010, only San Diego State had 25+ 40+ yard plays.

In 2019, six teams hit that mark. In 2016, 13 teams did it.

Since Bray’s last hurrah – armed with a defense that required lots of points to keep you in it – the Vols have been mostly managing risk in one form or another. Sometimes that looked like Justin Worley, sometimes it was Dobbs on a leash. It was really only in November of 2016, when the Vols also had a defense that required lots of points, that Tennessee truly lived this kind of life. Since then, whether through Jarrett Guarantano or various attempts to find a better option, whether philosophy or talent or all of the above…Tennessee just hasn’t seemed that interested in big plays.

They may need a bunch this fall. We’ll see. But whether they do or don’t, the pursuit should be enjoyable to watch. And to be sure, that pursuit may come with deep balls that miss their target and more three-and-outs than we can imagine against good defenses. But just the idea of the big play seems like something the Vols haven’t aggressively pursued in a long time. And that pursuit, in and of itself, should lead to more fun this fall.

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 in the last few years: Butch Jones’ Vols both gave away and recovered from multi-possession leads on a much more regular basis than anything we were used to before.

There’s value as a fan, especially of a team trying to rebuild, in being close. And not just in the end result, but in the process. Even before Butch or Heupel, a two-possession game has always felt within reach to me, even if that reach is touchdown-onside-touchdown. It’s improbable, but hopeful. Maybe that’s just me.

But even staying within two possessions has been much more of a challenge recently. And it would be an incredibly welcome addition in Heupel’s first season.

In Tennessee’s “decade” of dominance from 1989-2001, the Vols had seven losses by three or more possessions. If you’re old enough, you can probably list them from memory: 89 Alabama, 91 Florida, 91 Penn State, 93 Penn State, 94 Florida, 95 Florida, 97 Nebraska. Every one of those teams was raked in the Top 15, with those losses accounting for 4% of the total games Tennessee played in that 13-year run.

This is why it was so alarming, then, when the 2002 Vols, ranked in the top five in preseason, lost four games by 3+ possessions. Injuries, turnovers, and #1 Miami were all factors. Tennessee was much more competitive overall the next four years, suffering a single blowout loss each season from 2003-06. The 2007 roller coaster included a pair of such losses to Florida and Alabama. And then, of course, the wheels came off in 2008: three blowout losses, giving the Vols 13 3+ possession losses in seven seasons from 2002-08 at the end of the Fulmer era. The first nine of them came to Top 20 teams, before Nick Saban’s unranked Alabama squad did it in his first season in October 2007. An unranked South Carolina squad officially ended the Fulmer era in October 2008. Still, 11 of those 13 blowout losses came to Top 20 foes. Those losses accounted for 14.6% of Tennessee’s games in Fulmer’s last seven seasons.

From 2009-2016, the Vols suffered 18 3+ possession losses. It happened to Lane Kiffin twice, then three times in each of Derek Dooley’s seasons. An incredibly high strength of schedule gave Butch Jones four such losses in his first year, but then just two in 2014. And the 2015 Vols remain the only Tennessee team that hasn’t taken a 3+ possession loss since 2001; the 2016 Vols took one only to Alabama, joining their predecessors as the only Tennessee teams to suffer less than two 3+ possession losses since 2006.

So in that eight year span of rebuilding from 2009-16, Tennessee lost 18 3+ possession games to account for 17.8% of their total Saturdays. Still, through the end of the 2016 season Tennessee was mostly only getting blown out by good teams. Only three of those 18 losses came to unranked foes: Ole Miss and Dexter McCluster to Lane Kiffin, a slow-starting Georgia squad in Athens in 2010, and the Vanderbilt game in Derek Dooley’s farewell performance, essentially a man coaching without a job. The Vols were blown out more than we wanted in this stretch, and Dooley failed to beat a ranked team throughout his time, but the Vols were overall just getting beaten by better teams.

But in the last four years, Tennessee has lost 18 more 3+ possession games. That’s 38.2% of Saturdays from 2017-20. And a third of those losses came to unranked teams. Again: it’s been bad for a while, and the worst of it has been recently.

One question we asked a lot leading up to the 2020 season was, “Will I feel like Tennessee has a real chance to win every Saturday at kickoff?” Turns out the answer was no, but it felt like a measure of progress the program needed to be ready for going into year three.

In year one, obviously, you’re working with a different set of expectations. You start by setting the Alabama game aside: since an inspired rally in 2014 and a near miss in 2015, the Vols have lost by 39, 38, 37, 22, and 31. Making that one a four-possession game in 2021 might be relative success.

But even with Florida and Georgia on the schedule, there’s perhaps a glimmer of hope: including home field advantage in preseason SP+ projections, the Gators come in at around -15.5 against the Vols, the Dawgs -14 in Knoxville. Just hitting those projections, making those a pair of two-score games? That would be a really nice start for Josh Heupel.

I don’t expect Tennessee to have a real chance to win every Saturday this fall. I don’t really have any expectations when they play Bama. But everywhere else, if the Vols can just keep themselves invested in the outcome, even if it’s two possessions? If we can watch these games and think, “Well, we’re still in it…”? I think that will go a long way to our own investment as fans moving forward.

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 joke here is, of course, “That’s good, because Tennessee’s record may not be very good this year…”. But SP+ actually offers a little more optimism on that front for the Vols.

SP+ is one of the best indicators of how the Vols have both struggled for 13 years now, and the worst of it has happened most recently.

Butch Jones’ final season in 2017 is still the basement, with last season the second-worst of the last 15 years. And Jeremy Pruitt’s first season just edges past Butch Jones’ first season in rounding out the four lowest ratings for Tennessee since 2006.

(For more history, here’s our look at 50+ years of Tennessee in SP+ from January 2019.)

The good news here: Tennessee’s 2021 projection has the Vols north of these four worst seasons.

If we group these past seasons into tiers – something we did with KenPom projections for Tennessee’s last basketball season here – the 2021 Vols are projected to escape the basement in SP+. Tennessee’s five worst seasons of the last 15 years check in at:

• 2017: 1.2 (points better than the average team on a neutral field)
• 2020: 4.6
• 2013: 5.1
• 2018: 5.5
• 2011: 6.9

Tennessee’s 2021 projection is 8.3, making them essentially four point favorites over last year’s team from the get-go. This makes the best projected comparison for this team not the worst of our worst, but two other seasons:

• 2010: 7.7
• 2021: 8.3 (preseason projection)
• 2019: 10.8

If Josh Heupel’s first season ends up looking more like Derek Dooley’s and less like Butch Jones’ and Jeremy Pruitt’s, Tennessee will be moving in the right direction. And if the Vols can find success in close games the way Pruitt’s second team did, Tennessee can find itself on the right side of bowl eligibility.

What can we learn from 2010 and 2019?

Best teams still (mostly) out of reach. Dooley’s Year Zero Vols flirted with Oregon for the better part of three quarters, then found themselves losing by 35. The Vols were down just 13-10 at halftime to Alabama, but lost by 31. Pruitt’s 2019 Vols had a ton of chances to create a close game with Florida in the first half, cashed in none of them, and lost by 31. You get the picture.

But you’ll also recall Dooley’s Vols beating LSU on the first try in Baton Rouge, and Pruitt’s Vols at the goal line to cut Alabama’s lead to one possession. Dooley’s first team also cut Florida’s lead to seven with 11 minutes to play in 2010.

Add in a few points for home field advantage, and SP+ essentially has the Vols a 26-point underdog at Alabama and a two-touchdown underdog to Florida and Georgia. If those numbers actually held…that’s not a bad start for Josh Heupel. Since 2015, the Vols have only come within 30 points of Bama once, in that 35-13 loss in 2019. And two-score affairs with Florida and Georgia would be encouraging signs of progress.

Close games may abound (with anyone). Dooley’s 2010 Vols had a near miss with UAB, needing two overtimes to secure a 32-29 win. Pruitt’s 2019 Vols, of course, lost to Georgia State. Bowling Green may not quite be up to the challenge, but South Alabama (or Vanderbilt, depending on how we think of them at the time) may not qualify as sure things.

The 2019 Vols in particular were masters of close games, finding a way as one-possession underdogs to get it done against Mississippi State, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Missouri.

One thing to note about the 2021 SP+ projections: Pittsburgh is right above Tennessee at 8.5, creating an immediate toss-up in week two. The same goes for Kentucky and Missouri, where Tennessee’s slight SP+ advantage in preseason would be negated by home field advantage. And Ole Miss clocks in at around -4 against the Vols in these projections – which also do not think highly, at all, of South Carolina – creating an expected win total that’s going to creep closest to 7-5.

Get better as the year goes on. Obviously you want to avoid doing it the way Pruitt’s 2019 Vols did by losing to Georgia State and BYU before getting blown out by Florida, but the end result on both of these comparison squads was pretty good. Dooley’s first year ended with a particularly sour note against North Carolina, but the Vols found their quarterback and won four in a row to close the regular season to earn bowl eligibility. Same with the 2019 squad, starting 1-4 but finishing at 8-5 after the Gator Bowl. That’s still the best any Tennessee team has done in the post-Fulmer era other than the 2015-16 squads.

The Vols don’t have a stud freshman (that we’re anticipating) coming off the bench in mid-October to save the day, and the Georgia game sits in November now, so you can’t coast to the finish line. But if Josh Heupel’s team can avoid a significant upset, get above .500 in close games, and grow as the season progresses? They’ll have an opportunity to earn bowl eligibility, and escape the worst-of-the-worst seasons Tennessee has encountered during this long journey of exile. That would be a good start.

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. With touchdown percentage most valuable here, the Vols weren’t terrible: 15 touchdowns on 23 trips, 50th nationally at 65.22%. But the vast majority of that work was done both in the first two games (seven red zone touchdowns combined) and, more importantly, on the ground.

Tennessee quarterbacks in the red zone last season: 6-of-15 (40%) for 53 yards, three touchdowns, two interceptions. Tennessee ran the ball 44 times (74.6% of plays) in the red zone.

UCF quarterbacks in the red zone last season: 27-of-61 (44.3%) for 231 yards, 17 touchdowns, zero interceptions. UCF ran the ball 97 times (61.3%) in the red zone.

In a tight window, it’s obviously not about yards per attempt or even an incredibly high completion percentage. But Tennessee’s three red zone touchdown passes tied for 105th last season, and only six teams threw more interceptions inside the 20. You can see, and probably still feel, how little Tennessee’s coaches trusted their quarterbacks inside the 20. Meanwhile, UCF’s 17 touchdown passes were fourth nationally among teams playing just 10 games.

Of note: this doesn’t always go well for Josh Heupel’s teams. In 2019, the Golden Knights went just 19-of-52 (36.5%) inside the 20 with a 13-3 TD-INT ratio. A common thread in the 2019 team’s losses? Just two touchdowns in five red zone trips against Pittsburgh (lost 35-34), an incredible 1-for-6 against Cincinnati (lost 27-24), and three-for-four against Tulsa (lost 34-31).

Meanwhile in Tennessee’s past, the Vols threw four red zone interceptions in 2019 and three in 2017. That’s nine red zone picks in the last four years, with only four of them belonging to Jarrett Guarantano. Harrison Bailey threw one at the end of the Arkansas game last year, Brian Maurer threw a pair in 2019, and Quinten Dormady a pair in 2017.

The good news: 2018 was still really strong for UCF, with the Golden Knights going 22-of-42 (52.4%) in the red zone with 16 touchdowns and no interceptions. Drew Lock and Mizzou the year before: 25-of-51 (49%) with 21 touchdowns and a single pick.

Whoever takes command for Tennessee, they’ll surely be relied upon in more than 25% of the red zone snaps. And for a team with a thin margin for error, getting touchdowns and not field goals will be critical to the Vols’ success. We saw how quickly Tennessee’s third down success diminished when Jauan Jennings was no longer an option. Last year it went so poorly for Tennessee inside the 20, the Vols really have no established threats. So along with figuring out who the quarterback is, figuring out who this team likes to target inside the 20 will be of vital importance. This has not been a confident football team passing inside the 20 since 2016. I’m curious to see how quickly that will change.

In 2011, Tennessee went to #8 Arkansas as a 15-point underdog. Tyler Bray had a broken thumb, Derek Dooley had burned Justin Worley’s redshirt, and the Vols hadn’t scored more than seven points in their last three SEC contests. I went to the game to visit friends, plans made months before the season began, but still…you tell yourself, or at least I did, that you want to be there when it starts going the other way. When it starts going right.

It did not. The Vols lost 49-7, giving up a punt return in the process that still graces my Twitter feed two or three times a year. What I told myself after it was over was that maybe there was some historical value in being there when things were at their worst: we knew Bray would be back soon, Justin Hunter would be back the following year, surely this was the bottom.

That was ten years ago, the Vols turning a +15 line into a 42-point loss, a performance 27 points worse than the Vegas expectation. And by that metric, that 49-7 loss in Fayetteville barely cracks the top five worst such losses of the post-Fulmer era.

These are the bad surprises, and as you’ll see, they correlate directly to a rise in your blood pressure. They’re the ones that make you question everything, no matter what year the coach is in, and want a fresh start.

On the other hand, the good surprises – though certainly fewer in these last dozen seasons – provide that breath of fresh air, crisp and cool.

How many of each will we see in Josh Heupel’s first season?

One of the great lessons of this exercise, of course, is that Vegas often has a hard time getting the right read on year one. I used the closing lines from covers.com in looking back at past seasons. For example, Lane Kiffin’s 2009 Vols were above or below the Vegas line by at least 12 points seven times, and off by 18.5 or more points four times. Dooley’s Vols were above or below the closing line by at least 11 points seven times the following year. He and Butch Jones ran into a strength of schedule problem in year one, with Jones in particular getting lines against Oregon, Missouri, and Auburn that just couldn’t be high enough.

And, as you’ll see, no one was harder to predict than Jeremy Pruitt’s Vols in 2018, who went above or below the Vegas line by 20+ points five different times.

So yeah: teams can be streaky, Vegas doesn’t have a feel, etc. But a lot of it is the when of it all: did your team vastly underperform in September, or in November?

And consider how valuable some of these games were in sparking hope early, even if ultimately unrealized, in the last 12 years.

Here are the five best and worst Tennessee performances relative to the closing line in the post-Fulmer era.

Five Worst Surprises

5. 2011 Arkansas: Vols +15, lost 49-7, off by 27

As mentioned, turns out it could get worse than this.

4. 2018 Missouri: Vols +5.5, lost 50-17, off by 27.5

In hindsight, a ginormous red flag: seven days after beating Kentucky fairly easily, Jarrett Guarantano got knocked out of the game early. Josh Heupel was at Central Florida, but Drew Lock – and Derek Dooley – were still around at Mizzou. Pruitt’s first team needed one win to get bowl eligible, and instead ate a 50-17 beat down from Missouri, which didn’t feel like doom and gloom at the time…but then underperformed the Vegas line by 21.5 the following week at Vanderbilt. Again, if you’re going to go this route in year one, try to take it in September instead.

3. 2017 Georgia: Vols +10, lost 41-0, off by 31

A clear cut, “Well, this is over now,” moment for Butch Jones and Tennessee on the national stage. And as it turned out, a hard turn toward the off-ramp for Jones and Tennessee period. Some good feelings from 2015 and 2016 (and the final snap loss at Florida) could still be hoped for leading up to kickoff, but not after.

2. 2019 Georgia State: Vols -24.5, lost 38-30, off by 32.5

The 2019 Vols did a good job making us forget about this game by January. But the fullness of Jeremy Pruitt’s tenure will make sure we remember it, along with…

1. 2020 Kentucky: Vols -6.5, lost 34-7, off by 33.5

Turns out this one felt about as bad as it should have. In the context of that Arkansas game ten years ago, by this metric not only do you have four worse performances in the ten years since, but four worse performances in the last four seasons, with by far the two worst ones in the last two years. This one goes squarely in the, “Not only has it been bad for a long time, but it’s been getting worse,” pile.

Which means, one of these would be a whole lot of fun:

Five Best Surprises

5. 2019 South Carolina: Vols +4, won 41-21, off by 24

Two special teams touchdowns will do this for you. The Gamecocks weren’t great, and Tennessee spent the rest of 2019’s winning streak in close game after close game. But this one was just pure fun, and contained more highlight reel plays than…well, I mean, how far back do you have to go? I can remember four or five plays from this game right away. Can you remember four or five plays that went right in any game for Tennessee last year, or even in the 2018 Kentucky win? You need days like this along the way: beating South Carolina isn’t a feather in your cap at the end of 2019, but it’s hard to measure the joy and breath of fresh air it gave along the way.

4. 2009 Georgia: Vols +1, won 45-19, off by 27

Others have tried, but no one has done it better in their first year post-Fulmer than Lane Kiffin on this day. After stumbling out of the gate against UCLA (favored by 10.5, lost by 4), Tennessee and Jonathan Crompton turned in a performance that felt like pure validation. It’s been long enough now that the thing I used to say about this game – “Doesn’t count when your coach leaves in the middle of the night,” essentially – feels unfair and incomplete. It’s worth noting what this kind of win could mean; I don’t expect the 2021 Vols to be in the +1 neighborhood with any of our biggest rivals this year, but if Josh Heupel’s team busts up, say, Pittsburgh by 26 points? That validation word will get a test drive.

3. 2014 Utah State: Vols -3.5, won 38-7, off by 27.5

A game no one remembers because Justin Worley ceased to be the starting quarterback midway through the year, and Josh Dobbs – to his credit – wrote his own narrative. But the year two season opener for Butch Jones saw Chuckie Keaton and the memories of Tennessee underperforming the line so often in 2013 give us a relative toss=up on opening night…and the Vols just flat dominated on both sides of the ball. Among the millions of words that could be written about Butch Jones’ time is the way the 2014 Florida loss just made you disregard all the good the Vols did in starting with this win, then Arkansas State, then almost beating Georgia.

2. 2015 Northwestern: Vols -9.5, won 45-6, off by 29.5

Despite all the near misses of 2015, it was indeed great to be a Tennessee Vol from January 1 through mid-October of 2016. This is still Tennessee’s largest win over a ranked opponent since 1990, and rightfully set the stage for an off-season of real championship conversation.

1. 2010 Ole Miss: Vols -2.5, won 52-14, off by 35.5

Behold the power of, “We’ve found our quarterback.” Tyler Bray won at Memphis in his first start, but that was Memphis. Ole Miss wasn’t any good either, as it turned out, but neither was a 3-6 Tennessee team in the moment. Tennessee’s first three offensive possessions went 80-yard touchdown, punt, 3 plays 86 yards (all to Denarius Moore) for a touchdown, then an Eric Gordon pick six. Prentiss Wagner got another pick six on the Rebels’ second play of the third quarter. Bray threw for 323 yards, three scores, and no interceptions. And the hope we found here really stayed alive for quite some time, through Bray’s injury until the Kentucky loss at the end of the next season. There would be no surprise more pleasant for Tennessee fans this fall than the starting quarterback putting up a day like this in a game considered a toss-up at kickoff.

In each of the last two SEC expansions, Tennessee had no reason to worry. Arkansas and South Carolina weren’t perceived as serious threats in 1992, nor Missouri in 2012. Of course, those teams went 3-0 against the Vols in their SEC debuts, so what do we know.

But now, Texas and Oklahoma and Tennessee’s continual slide makes for a different conversation for us. I’m not sure any of us know how to define success for Tennessee in a 16-team SEC. But perhaps it’s helpful to look back at how teams on Tennessee’s level have defined success in the last expansion.

The top tier has won enough, and recently, to not be concerned with newcomers just yet. The Vols used to be in this group. If the success conversation begins with Atlanta, this group generally finds themselves in the thick of that conversation more often than not.

Here’s a rough estimate of not only division titles, but how many times each team had a realistic chance to get to Atlanta:

Getting to Atlanta 2012-2020

Alabama Tier

• Alabama: Six SEC West titles, nine total chances to win (100%)

Traditional Powers, Modern Success

• Auburn: Two SEC West titles, five total chances to win (55.6%)
• Florida: Three SEC East titles, six total chances to win (66.7%)
• Georgia: Four SEC East titles, six total chances to win (66.7%)
• LSU: One SEC West title, four total chances to win (44.4%)

Three of these teams also carry recent-enough history from before expansion to buoy them: Florida won it all in 2006 & 2008, Auburn in 2010, and LSU played for it in 2011. And on the tail end, some disappointing finishes for Les Miles got wiped away by Ed Orgeron and Joe Burrow in 2019.

What about the next group down? Among these eight schools, only Missouri actually won a division title post-expansion. Each of them had at least one real chance to get there. And we’ve added a note on how often they changed head coaches as another barometer of success:

The Middle Tier

• Arkansas: One chance to win (2015), Four head coaches
• Kentucky: One chance to win (2018), Two head coaches
• Ole Miss: Two chances to win (2014-15), Three head coaches
• Mississippi State: One chance to win (2014), Three head coaches
• Missouri: Two SEC East titles (2013-14), two total chances to win, Three head coaches
• South Carolina: Three chances to win (2013-14, 2017), Three head coaches
• Tennessee: Two chances to win (2015-16), Four head coaches
• Texas A&M: Three chances to win (2013-14, 2020), Two head coaches

Vanderbilt Tier

• Vanderbilt: Zero chances to win, Three head coaches

Here’s the question: how many of these programs felt like success was attainable in the last decade?

The schools that really only made one pass at Atlanta all have different bonuses. Arkansas was nationally elite the year before expansion before Bobby Petrino’s motorcycle cost them. Mississippi State didn’t just almost get to Atlanta, they spent four weeks at #1 in 2014 and earned a New Year’s Six invite. And Kentucky has become the most stable non-Alabama job in the SEC during this run, with Stoops working a slow burn to a winner-take-all game with Georgia in 2018.

Ole Miss had two chances to win with Hugh Freeze, then lost him to scandal. Tennessee was any number of plays away from winning the SEC East had they beaten Florida in Gainesville in 2015, and gave away a 2-0 lead on Florida and Georgia in 2016. They are more isolated moments of almost-success.

South Carolina came into expansion with a division title in 2010 and plenty of momentum. The Gamecocks had every opportunity to get back to Atlanta in 2012 and 2013, and did catch what would’ve been a winner-take-all game with Georgia in 2017 considering they beat Florida the following week. But overall their success is certainly tilted toward the front half of the last decade, thus Muschamp out and Beamer in. Missouri is the hardest one to place, I think: a pair of division titles, then a 1-7 finish in league play the following year with Pinkel’s retirement. Barry Odom had some close losses in a 4-4 finish in 2018, but they never really threatened, thus new coach last year.

And then there’s Texas A&M, who threatened with Johnny Football then didn’t again after the month of September. They’re the clearest-cut example of the road simply going through Alabama now: an incredible year last season, but effectively over in week two when the Tide won 52-24.

Of this group, I think certainly A&M thinks they can get to Atlanta. Tennessee has the historical expectation. South Carolina proved they could flirt with it regularly under Spurrier. I would imagine Missouri believes it can still be done since they did it twice. And Lane Kiffin talks often about the ceiling that drew him to Oxford.

As for the rest? Is the expectation at Arkansas, Kentucky, and Mississippi State to get to Atlanta at least once? Is that healthy or reasonable?

I’m comforted by the fact that, other than Vanderbilt, everybody got close at least once in the last expansion, and 10 of the league’s 14 teams have multiple seasons that are legitimate what-ifs in that same span.

You can’t what-if it forever, of course. But what is success going to be in a 16-team league? Atlanta? A spot in a 12-team playoff?

The Vols, of course, haven’t sniffed a hypothetical 12-team playoff since 2007, and probably wouldn’t have made that field since 2003. But the rest of that group? Arkansas would’ve been in in 2011, and in expansion times:

Mid-Tier SEC Teams in a Hypothetical 12-Team Playoff 2012-20 (BCS/CFP data)

• 2012: South Carolina, Texas A&M
• 2013: Missouri, South Carolina
• 2014: Ole Miss, Mississippi State
• 2020: Texas A&M

Kentucky would’ve just missed in 2018. The only teams that really haven’t come close during that span are Arkansas, Vanderbilt, and of course…Tennessee.

Is there something to mid-tier teams not having as much success since 2014 or so? I’m not sure. And the Vols have plenty of room to grow their own definition of success under Josh Heupel.

But it’s valuable – in Fayetteville, Lexington, Columbia, Starkville, Oxford, and Knoxville – to believe your team, yes your team, can have a shot. And that conversation has to stay alive into November every now and then.

How likely are these programs to find success in this brave new world? I’m not sure. But I do find it somewhat comforting that all of them came close at least once, and most more often than that, in the last expansion.

As first impressions go, Josh Heupel probably couldn’t ask for a better opener among FBS foes. Bowling Green went 0-5 in the MAC last season, losing by an average margin of 45-11. Only UMass was worse in SP+ last season, and the Falcons are 125th in 2021 preseason SP+ projections.

Of course, it’s not just that the last time we saw both Bowling Green and UMass, they almost beat us. There was plenty of, “Finally, a cupcake opener!” for Georgia State just two years ago. You never know.

But there’s at least a chance Josh Heupel’s Vols put up something ridiculous in week one. That would lead us straight into the overreaction trap for the first real temperature check of his tenure just nine days later. Pitt’s a story for another day. For now, if the Vols do throw out a big number on Bowling Green to open the Josh Heupel era, it would certainly look and feel different than what we’ve seen recently.

In the post-Fulmer era, the Vols have scored 40+ points in regulation vs an FBS opponent 22 times in 12 years. Ten of those belong to Josh Dobbs; seven more to Tyler Bray. Jonathan Crompton did it twice in the back half of 2009.

Two of the other three involved weirdness: Western Kentucky’s “let’s turn it over on every play!” strategy in 2013, which helped Butch Jones get off to a nice start in his second game. And South Carolina two years ago, when the Vols scored 41 points by way of two special teams touchdowns. That leaves Vanderbilt last year as the final example, when the Vols did get a pick six from Bryce Thompson (and also, it was 2020 Vanderbilt).

Between Dobbs and that special teams flourish against South Carolina two years ago, Tennessee rode the struggle bus hard. In regulation, the Vols never even scored 30 points against FBS competition in 2017. They did it only once in 2018, again aided by a defensive score, in the signature win at Auburn (30). And in 2019, they scored 30+ against Georgia State (30), South Carolina (41), and UAB (30).

So, bump it up to 31+ points, and 2019 South Carolina is the only time the Vols hit that mark vs an FBS foe in regulation for three straight years.

This is one reason that early start felt so good last year: 31 points at South Carolina, 35 against Mizzou. Obviously neither of those teams were world-beaters, but Tennessee’s offense got the job done against middle-tier SEC East teams in a way it did not in the previous three seasons. And then, of course, it did not for the rest of the non-Vanderbilt schedule last fall.

This is perhaps the silverest of linings for Josh Heupel’s brand of football this year: Tennessee has been so bad on offense the last four years, it won’t take much to make us feel good. And nothing feels better in football than points.

So man, 40+, even on Bowling Green, would feel really good compared to what we’ve seen recently. Hit 50+, and that’s only been done vs FBS in regulation 10 times post-Fulmer (half of those are Dobbs).

And 60+? That’s been done once, and done in part because Josh Heupel was on the other sideline: in 2016, Tennessee beat Missouri 63-37 in a game featuring 1,349 total yards, and the Tigers running 110 total plays.

I don’t know exactly what will happen against Bowling Green, who the quarterback will be, or if he can find a way to add his name to the list with Crompton, Bray, and Dobbs over the last 13 years.

But I think there’s a chance we could have some fun right away.

Here’s the full list:

Tennessee 40+ Points (vs FBS in regulation) Post-Fulmer

• 2020 Vanderbilt: 42
• 2019 South Carolina: 41
• 2016 Virginia Tech: 45
• 2016 Kentucky: 49
• 2016 Missouri: 63
• 2015 Bowling Green: 59
• 2015 Kentucky: 52
• 2015 Vanderbilt: 53
• 2015 Northwestern: 45
• 2014 South Carolina: 45 (42 in regulation)
• 2014 Kentucky: 50
• 2014 Iowa: 45
• 2013 Western Kentucky: 52
• 2012 Akron: 47
• 2012 Georgia: 44
• 2012 Troy: 55
• 2011 Cincinnati: 45
• 2011 Buffalo: 41
• 2010 Memphis: 50
• 2010 Ole Miss: 52
• 2009 Georgia: 45
• 2009 Memphis: 56

It’s July 9, which means we’re still deep in the land of power rankings and projections. Phil Steele’s mammoth magazine usually provides some off-season content, but one of the biggest red flags for me personally is how little Tennessee shows up in it at all this year. Stay tuned.

The most fun you can have with these things is projected win totals, both for the expectations conversation and comparing yourself to your peers. ESPN updated their FPI rankings and projected win totals this week, and of note in the SEC:

• 11 wins: Alabama
• 10 wins: Georgia, Texas A&M
• 9 wins: Florida
• 7 wins: Auburn, Kentucky, LSU, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Missouri

That’s a lot in the middle. Like, a lot a lot.

Seven teams projected to hit the same number is the most for any power five conference. And the spectrum is a little short of what it actually could be, from Auburn’s 7.2 projected wins to Missouri’s 6.5. These are regular season win totals, so your theoretical seven wins could become eight in one of the SEC’s group of six bowls.

It’s surprisingly balanced, at least to me, for the SEC: four teams from the West, three from the East. And depending on your take of Auburn’s trip to Penn State on September 18, it’s not a projection of seven wins because any of these teams face insurmountable odds in a non-conference game. Kentucky and Ole Miss both play Louisville, LSU opens in the Rose Bowl, Mississippi State hosts NC State, the Vols host Pitt, and Mizzou is at Boston College.

There’s a long-standing joke about parity in the ACC Coastal, and that league does offer the closest comparison in FPI:

• 12 wins: Clemson
• 9 wins: Miami, North Carolina
• 7 wins: Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh, Boston College, Louisville, NC State, Virginia

No other league has more than four teams projected to hit the same number. And Tennessee’s other SEC East contemporaries are further down the list: South Carolina at five wins, Vanderbilt at four (and Arkansas at six to round out the league).

I’m sure some of these SEC teams will hit eight wins and some six. But the actual projection is one that Tennessee would take: a 7-5 regular season with a (theoretical) chance to get to eight wins via one of those group of six bowls would represent the best on-paper year one for any Tennessee coach since Fulmer. It continues to appear from a distance that so much of Tennessee’s final record will come down to what they do against the group of teams in this same projection range, which means we’ll get more meaningful action right away with Pitt, Missouri, South Carolina, and Ole Miss all on the schedule in the first seven Saturdays.